


Chronicles of Erik

by AimlessCat



Series: Tales told in Tandem [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 44,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8570785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AimlessCat/pseuds/AimlessCat
Summary: The Chronicles of Erik, Dragonborn, as he travels though Skyrim and makes his name known, as told by short chapters written by a friend named 'Lien'.





	1. Talos Be Praised

**Author's Note:**

> This was not written by me. This is the work of one of my best friends, 'Lien'. It is a simple story, following the adventures of his PC, written as a form of stress relief. Well not originally intended for an audience beyond myself and our mutual friend, I have with his permission, compiled it here, for easier access.

The cold snowy ground on my face. The numb tingling in my fingers. A heavy Thalmor boot on my head. Damn. How did it come to this? What a lame and cliché question, but I didn’t care about lame questions then. It truly was a special moment of reflection for me. I didn’t even know where to begin. 

I suppose it all started with the war. The Great War; y’know, that one between the Empire and the elves? Now, I wasn’t part of that particular war. I’m not even sure if I was born by the end of it. No, I joined the imperial army afterwards, carrying some stupid notion of being a hero and fixing things. Instead, I played the heroic role of scout; Scout Erik Windreacher. When I was a boy, I always dreamed of honor and glory as a soldier; my father made it sound so easy. I learned pretty quick that there wasn’t any honor in war. War was a lot of things: bloody, unrelenting, unforgiving, and so on, but it certainly wasn’t honorable. I figured that out when I was lying on the ground bleeding out while my Imperial comrades left me in the Thalmor’s hands. Never really forgave them for that. I was captured and tortured a little, but I wasn’t in their hospitality for long. Didn’t mean I hated those high elves any less, though. After some sort of paper was signed, and the Thalmor let me go, I quit the army and returned home. 

To Skyrim. 

I was born and raised in Skyrim; a Nord to a respected Nord lord, so naturally I had a cozy upbringing and unrealistic expectations for the world. My father was a soldier too before he settled down, which left him plenty of time to train me how to fight. Some of my best memories were learning to wield a sword and shield from my old man. Unfortunately, the imperial army was an end to many chapters in my life. By the time I made it back home, I found it razed to the ground. No survivors. I took a new name for myself after that; Erik Stone. My family name had died with my family. 

I wandered most of Skyrim after that; sold my skills as mercenary for hire. Made a bit of a name for myself during that time, at least in the Reach. People knew I got the job done, and they knew I did it clean. Mostly, I dealt with bandits and minor disputes, but I made enough gold to move from inn to inn. I kept hearing a lot of talk of a civil war in Skyrim: the Empire versus the Stormcloaks. I remember looking up to Ulfric after the war. He seemed like a good leader, but his reputation for pro-Nord seemed a little too intense for me, and the Empire…yeah, I had enough of them to last a life time. So I mostly steered clear of it. 

Well, I tried to, anyways. 

I won’t deny that I’m proud of my people’s history. I proudly accepted Talos as the Ninth Divine and no paper made up by a bunch of mortals was going to tell me otherwise. So when I walked by that damned shrine, I had to stop and make an offering. I always felt…more calm afterwards. At least for a bit. Of course, things didn’t really wind up like that this time. 

It seemed like they came out of nowhere; an elf cloaked in black, followed by a few more in golden armor. I heard some of them laugh and I could practically taste the air of superiority they thought they wielded. “Well now, isn’t this a surprise? A Nord coming to pray to his false Nord god. Didn’t we ban that filth?” the cloaked one spoke. I drew my sword, silent and focused, and aimed the steel in front of me. My shield was on my back, and I wouldn’t be able to draw it in time. I barely had enough time to guide my sword between the bolt of lightning and myself. 

Now, I should mention I was well aware that blocking a bolt of lightning with a sword is a never really a good idea. The truth was, I knew I was boned either way. The lightning arced around the blade and in an instant I was sent off my feet and right into Talos’ statue. Between the damage from the magic and the impact with the stone I felt my vision blur and next thing I knew there was a boot on my head and a bunch of laughing elves surrounding me. I was pretty sure this was already going to be the end of my heroic tale. 

At least I had one stroke of good luck. 

I don’t know how it happened that a party of Stormcloaks just happened to be passing through, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue when they swarmed the Thalmor from the surrounding bushes. A couple of well-placed arrows and a dozen roaring nords made quick work of a small band of Thalmor. During the confusion, I popped a red potion from my pocket and even managed to grab my sword and sink it deep into the magic-wielding one’s back. He looked into my eyes with his last breaths, and I gave the smuggest of smiles. “Talos be praised, bitch.” A final twist of my blade was enough to bleed the rest of him out. I let his corpse fall to the ground and I immediately started to feel really weak again; it seemed like my extended health potion was running out. 

“Damn it all…” was all I could mutter before falling back unconscious.


	2. A Promise in Riverwood

So, I woke up in a little town called Riverwood a few days later. As it turns out, getting hit with a bolt of lightning can cause your heart to stop, and it did, for a few minutes, as I was told. It also turns out, one of those Stormcloak soldiers had brought me back to his home and his family had patched up the rest of my wounds. That soldier’s name was Ralof; an honest and honorable man. I had to admit, if the Stormcloaks had Ralof’s ideals, I might’ve been more tempted to join. But I knew better; he was just one good man in a conflict with no right side. So, knowing that, I had no idea why I made the promise I did. He saved my life, and I swore on my life that I would repay him. And he named his payment, that bastard. Long story short, I promised to aid the Stormcloaks. Mostly as an excuse to get back at the Thalmor for being total assholes. 

I hung around Riverwood for a bit after that. Ralof’s sister, Gerdur, let me stay at her family’s place while I healed. It was strange being in one place for so long after being on the move so much. It didn’t take long for me to get stir-crazy; at one point I found myself witnessing a love-triangle, and helped a wood elf hook up with a decent-looking Imperial woman, Camilla. She and her brother ran a small store and, during one of my visits, I had walked in on a heated discussion between the two of them, and found out their golden dragon claw had been stolen. I didn’t even ask for a reward, I just told them I’d go and get the claw. Apparently, the thieves were spotting heading towards a place called “Bleak Falls Barrow.” 

Now, I should mention that I’ve never been a big fan of crypts and never understood why our ancestors didn’t just burn all of their dead so that they wouldn’t be walking around later. Unfortunately, I was helpless to do anything about it and, after scaling the mountain where the barrow was located, I picked off some inexperienced bandits using the archery techniques Faendal, the elf I helped get laid in Riverwood, taught me. 

Inside the barrow was as grimy and gross as I imagined it being. There were still some bandits inside, but I dispatched them quickly with my blade. A few parries and strikes was all it took; I didn’t even have to use the shield on my back. Too much effort. Satisfied they were taken care of, naturally I looted their corpses and went on my less-than-merry way. 

Descending some stairs, I noticed one of the bandits walking ahead with his back to me and snuck forward, careful not to alert him. I drew my bow and pulled an arrow back, but before I could fire the man pulled some sort of lever and cried in agony as over a dozen poison darts pierced his body. I put an arrow into the back of his neck to put him out of his misery. I noticed a few statues in the room matched stone carvings around the room that depicted the same symbols. “Snake, snake, fish…” I whispered as I scanned the carvings from left to right. I turned the statues so that the same pattern was reflected forward, and pulled the lever. The door opened and gave a sigh of relief. I hated puzzles. 

You know what I hate more than puzzles? Spiders. 

You know what I hate more than spiders? Giant spiders. 

As I followed a man’s cries for help, I almost ran right into the giant spider’s trap. Luckily, I quickly backed out of the room and was content to fill the nightmare fuel up with arrows until it died. That only left the man, a dark elf, hanging in the spider’s web, obviously intended to be dinner. 

“Help me out of here!” he demanded, I couldn’t help but grin. 

“You seem to be in a sticky situation” I said smugly. He didn’t appreciate the joke. 

“What? Shut up! Cut me down or you’ll never get the claw!” 

“The claw? Wait… What claw?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me. The claw, the markings, the door; I know how it all comes together.” 

“Right… Whatever.” 

I carefully began to cut through the webs. The elf only became more and more gleeful as he came more and more loose. Eventually, the came loose. “There. You’re loose… Now give me the claw” 

“Fool, why would I share the treasure with you!?” 

He turned to run, but I reached out and grabbed him by his armor and drove my sword right through his back. “You weave a web of lies…” I whispered into his hear; I couldn’t tell if he sighed or had his last breath. Either way, I took the claw off his fresh corpse. 

The rest of the dungeon was relatively uneventful. I ran into some Draugr, undead nord warriors, but they were no match for me. Even in numbers, they were cut down from my steel sword. I got the door the thieving dark elf had mentioned, which naturally had more symbols on it to set to a particular order. I noticed similar symbols on the claw. Sure enough, another matching game puzzle later and I was through. 

I still hate puzzles. 

As I walked into the last room, something felt…weird. Not a bad weird, exactly, in fact it felt good. Soon I began to hear a noise, like a chanting in my head. Then I noticed the huge stone carving up ahead, and what looked like a glowing word on it. From far away, it looked like gibberish, but the closer I got, the more the symbols seemed to form…a word? I couldn’t read it with my eyes, but began to feel like I understood it. I was so enticed by it, I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I bumped into the rock. Suddenly, the symbol flashed in my head with perfect clarity. 

Force. 

I stepped back, totally confused. “What in the shit was that?” I asked, despite the fact I knew no one was listening. Or so I thought, the sarcophagus behind me erupted open and I whirled around to see another undead nord, sporting a very pointy helmet and, what caught my eye most, was a neat looking black sword. “Nice… I’ll be taking that off your corpse…er…your fresher corpse… Whatever…” I drew my shield, “It’s not like you got the brains to understand me anyways.” 

I thrusted with my blade, but to my surprise, the creature parried my blow with a surprising amount of speed. I was so shocked I barely had enough time to block the return-hit with my shield and, even then I staggered more than I intended to. 

Crap, this thing was a cut above the other undead baddies. I upped my game, using some of the more advanced techniques I learned in the army. It seemed to be going more my way. Hell, I even found and opened and cleaved the son of a bitch’s offhand, well, off. “Hehe… Hey… Hey, man. I guess I totally-” 

“Fus…RO-DAAAAAAaaaaah!!!” 

That sound hit me like a mammoth. I crashed right into the carved stone with the funny words and something weird happened to my arm. Was it a break? I felt a rush of pain when I tried to move it, so…yup. Definitely broken. Shit. 

The draugr deathlord…yeah, I think deathlord was a pretty rad name…approached; that ebony sword glinting with deadly intention. It raised the sword, but before it could bring it down I plunged the dagger I kept sheathed on my lower back deep into the monster’s skull. Those glowing blue eyes dimmed, and at last my foe had been slain. I stood there, panting and in pain, realizing that dungeon was exploring was actually kind of dangerous. “Next time, I’m bringing help…” I decided and picked my new ebony sword off the ground, “But at least you were worth it.” 

While walking by the black sarcophagus, I noticed a funny looking stone inside. “Nice, some extra loot for my troubles.” I announced to myself and happily dropped the stone into my pack. Hopefully, the stone was a sign that my luck was finally on the up and up. 

Gods, in hindsight, it sucked being wrong.


	3. Nature of the Beast

Everything was happening so fast I barely could keep track of what was going on. 

So, as it turned out, rumors of dragons returning to Skyrim were more than just rumors; they really were back. At least, that was what the terrified guard was explaining to me, Jarl Balgruuf, and the Jarl’s Housecarl, a stern-looking dark elf named Irileth. 

“Go on, man, you have the Jarl’s attention” Irileth urged on, but the guard still took a few seconds to collect himself. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could smell his sweat and hear his rough breathing; how long had he been running for? 

“S-sorry, h-housecarl… It was like I said, it just sort of flew around the west tower. I offered to come back and warn you. Never ran so fast in my life…” he finally replied, still out of breath. 

Balgruuf’s eyes softened just a little. “Easy, lad. You’ve done well, go and get yourself cleaned and rested. You’ve earned it.” 

The Jarl’s eyes turned me and I knew the question was coming. I was asked to help and, by the Nine, I was too foolhardy to deny his request. Irileth and I left the city with a handful of guards -she gave a rousing speech, as I recall- and headed for the Western Watchtower in search of the dragon. 

It was easy to tell that we were on the right track. 

By the time the tower was in sight, it looked it had been roasted. Chunks of stone were scattered in the surrounding field because of part of the watchtower being smashed. Flames still burned in small pockets around the tower ruins, but they weren’t much priority considering what we were preparing to face. 

“There’s no sign of a dragon now, but it sure looks like he’s been here” said Irileth. 

“Just look at this… How can we possibly stand up to that?” I heard one of the guards mutter. 

“Keep your wits about you. Are you a man or a coward?” Irileth responded, quick as a whip. I couldn’t tell if she was just acting tough or was honestly as brave as she seemed. I was hoping for the latter. “Spread out! It could still be near…” 

And we did…though maybe not as much as one imagines by ‘spreading out’. We were all nervous; and if we were lucky, the dragon would find the man next to us more appealing than we were. I sheathed my sword and slung my shield over my shoulder to take out my bow. The last thing I wanted to do was engage a dragon up close. The guards had been generous enough to lend me a quiver of steel arrows, and I intended on using them up first. I just hoped my training with Aela would pay off. 

Gods! Why didn’t I get the Companions to come help us? 

“You there! Erik!” I heard Irileth call out and I turned my head to look at her. She was pointing to the tower before she continued, “Go see if there are any survivors!” 

I sighed and began to approach the tower with my arrow already loaded. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it was difficult from the destruction I was seeing; I had to walk around more than a few charred and broken bodies. “Sovngarde awaits you…” I whispered whilst walking past. These poor bastards didn’t deserve this; how could any man deal with such power? I had a feeling I was going to find out soon, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it. 

“No, get back!” I heard a guard shout while running towards me…from the tower. I had to admit, it was nice seeing a survivor. His next words, however? Not so nice. “It’s still here somewhere! Hamgan and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!” 

“What? Where is it, man? I don’t see anything here.” I asked. 

“Guardsman! Where’s the dragon? Quickly now!” Irileth demanded behind me. 

I knew we shouldn’t have said something to tempt the gods, because that was when I heard the roar. Now, I’d heard loud roars before: wolves, sabretooths, and bears. But this? This shook the ground I was standing on, and it was only getting louder. 

“Kynareth save us, here he comes again…” the guard said, his voice oozing fear and I didn’t blame him. 

I didn’t see the dragon at first; the loud roars were bouncing off every object so the sound was hard to pin down. Suddenly, I noticed Irileth and the other guards scrambling for cover…away from me. 

“Damn it.” 

I turned and was amazed by what I saw. Brown scales glinted in the sun and large, leathery wings made the nearby trees sway as the beast descended. And by the Nine, I had never seen a monster so HUGE. Its head was as big as a man, and just as capable of swallowing one hole if given the chance. Its roars were loud enough to make my ears ring, such that I was barely able to hear Irileth calling out commands to the other guards. 

“Find cover!” I heard her shout, “Make every arrow count!” 

That was certainly a plan I could get behind. 

I dove behind a piece of rubble and drew my arrow back on my bow. I took aim, but it was hard to pin down the dragon while it was flying. Its movements were surprisingly fast and unpredictable, eventually some of the guards gave up on making arrows count and just hoped to hit something; I didn’t blame them. Finally, the beast paused whilst hovering or a couple guards, which had taken the opportunity to hit it with some arrows. Unfortunately, despite sticking into their target, the dragon hardly flinched. In an instant, the two men were engulfed in flames. I could smell the seared flesh from my position. 

“You bastard…” I cursed and let an arrow lose. It hit its mark right in the dragon’s armpit area; at least my training with Aela was indeed paying off. The dragon roared in pain, and began to seek me out. Being the brave and noble Nord I was, I slipped back behind my piece of stone and waited for it to turn its attention somewhere else. After all, I liked living the most. 

I could hear Irileth still directing the remainder of the guards. Although the arrows themselves seemed to do little damage on their own, the sheer number of them was enough to do some damage…or at least piss it off a little more. I stood out of my cover and prepared another arrow just in time to witness Irileth and a couple guards become engulfed in a huge ball of flame. 

“No!” I called out, figuring they were as good as dead. 

I fired another arrow and watched as it embedded itself in the flying beast’s wing. Apparently I had knicked a good spot, because the dragon seemed to be having a more difficult time moving that particular wing. Hopefully I had damaged some muscle. Suddenly, another arrow pierced a similar spot, and I turned to see Irileth standing amongst the flames, a chunk of her chestplate burned away, but her skin relatively uninjured. I had forgotten dark elves were particularly resistant to fire. “I’m not dead yet, beast!” she called out, and I had to admit it was pretty damn heroic. The second arrow finally forced the dragon to the ground. 

“Krif krin. Pruzah!” I heard a voice call out while the dragon roared. That was really weird; I could almost make out common tongue out of the foreign words. It was like they were on the tip of my tongue. 

I drew back another arrow on my bow and fired at the dragon, hitting it in the side of its neck and causing it to roar out in pain. Suddenly, its bronze eyes turned to me and I almost froze on the spot. 

“I had forgotten what fine sport you mortals can provide!” I distinctly heard the dragon say, leaving me too shocked to move. They could talk!? Luckily, I regained my senses just in time to dive behind cover before a volley of flames could burn me where I stood. The sudden rise in temperature left me panting. I peeked over my cover and saw Irileth, and what was left of the Whiterun guards, engaging the dragon. In the air it was harder to hit, sure, but on the ground it could move relative fast as well and those jaws were strong enough to easily rip through armor, as one guard was unfortunate enough to find out. The dragon tossed him around like a rag doll. 

“I am Mirmulnir!” I heard within the dragon’s roar. At least now I had a name to go with the pretty face. 

I drew my sword from its sheath; the ebony blade I had retrieved from Bleak Falls Barrow. I don’t know what had suddenly come over me, but something deep inside me told me I needed to get close to that dragon. Maybe I was experiencing bravado in denial too, but when I peeked over my rock and saw the dragon contently squaring off with Irileth and the other guards, I made my move. Having to sprint to get close to the dragon was why I preferred lighter armor. Most of my time spent with Eorlund was spent on creating a special type of armor for myself; light as leather but defensive as steel. I had donned our latest implementation of it just before I found myself helping the Jarl, and I was never more thankful for it than I was now. I had just gotten close enough to the dragon to attack it by the time it noticed me. 

Again, I don’t know what it was…but some instinct in my body was screaming at me on how to engage the dragon. It opened its huge maw and, seeing the flame beginning to build inside, I bashed the side of its jaws with my shield and forced its flames to stop in its throat, at the cost of my shield flying from my hand. Mirmulnir, as the dragon apparently called itself, turned its head back to me and opened its jaws again, this time to snap at me with every intention of ripping me apart from the waist up, but another quick instinct caused me to slash at the inside of its mouth with my sword. Blood gushed from the wound and the dragon shook its head in pain. I felt like the battle was going in my favor, but I still needed a bigger opening. 

“Now!” I shouted towards Irileth and the others, who had their bows already drawn and waiting. The suddenly volley of arrows striking the dragon’s head caused Mirmulnir to rear its long neck back to avoid them further, but in doing so I found my chance. 

“For Whiterun!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and, as Mirmulnir brought its head back down, I plunged the black blade deep into the base of the dragon’s neck. The creature cried in pain, and with a roar of determination of my own, I lead the blade up the dragon’s throat and spilled its blood into a pool around me. The mighty creature fell to the ground and, in that moment, I knew we had won. The dragon had been slain. 

But as if things hadn’t already been crazy enough, I was totally unprepared for the result of my victory. 

The dragon, with its last breaths, seemed to come to a sudden realization as it lay dying. It let out a final cry of defeat, in which I clearly heard the words “Dovahkiin? No!” contained within. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part. As the dragon drew its last breath, a strange sensation suddenly coursed through me like a powerful river. 

“Let’s make sure the overgrown lizard is really dead,” I heard Irileth said from behind me. 

The dragon’s body began to burn away into some form of energy, which soon began to flow towards my body like a strange wind. 

“Get back!” Irileth shouted, but I was stuck on the spot. 

The feeling was unexplainable; there was no pain, but I had to grit my teeth from the intensity. My body was tingling all over and, suddenly, I felt a strange sensation suddenly grow in my more. By the time the energy finished transferring, the dragon was nothing but bones and some faint flesh. And everyone was staring at me. 

“What…was that?” I asked, breathless. 

“That dragon…? What did you do to-” One of the guards began to say before he was interrupted. 

The strange power that had manifested in me was suddenly trying to crawl out, or at least show itself. An ancient and powerful instinct suddenly flashed in my mind, and I suddenly felt a word on my tongue that I couldn’t help but shout as loud as I could. 

“FUS!!!” was the word that erupted from my throat, and from it a form of bluish…force…cleared the smoke that was lingering around the dragon’s throat. I knew that wasn’t normal, and I could feel everyone’s eyes drilling into me now more than ever. There was a long silence before someone finally spoke. 

“You… You’re dragonborn.” I heard one of the guards say. 

I turned to him, incredibly confused. “Dragon-what?” 

“You defeated the dragon and consumed its soul, just like the legends laid. You even spoke in their voice.” 

“That’s right,” another guard observed, “My grandfather used to tell stories of the dragonborn all the time.” 

The guards soon began to bicker amongst themselves over whether or not I was what they figured I was, but in that moment my whole world shattered. “Dragonborn? What in oblivion does that mean?” I asked myself. I glanced towards Irileth, and she also seemed as though she was making up her mind about me. 

“What do you say, Irileth? You’re being awfully quiet” a guard suddenly asked that brought me back into their conversation. 

“Come on, Irileth,” added a guard impatiently, “Tell us. Do you believe in this dragonborn business?” 

“Some of you would be better off keeping quiet than flapping your gums over matters you know nothing about.” Irileth suddenly responded with a snort, and gestured towards the skeletal remains of the Mirmulnir. “Here’s a dead dragon. And that’s something I definitely understand. Now we know we can kill them, and I don’t need some mythical dragonborn. Someone who can put down a dragon is more than enough for me.” 

“You wouldn’t understand, housecarl,” one of the guards, the one who had been talking me up, replied, “You ain’t a Nord.” 

“I’ve been all across Tamriel,” Irileth responded, “I’ve seen plenty of things just as outlandish as this. I’d advise all of you to trust in the strength of your sword arm over tales and legends.” 

Finally, Irileth turned to me. If she wanted to know what my opinion was, she didn’t ask. 

“I’m taking command here, for the moment” she said, “Go back to the Jarl and report what happened here.” 

I nodded, and turned to do so; I knew I had a lot to think about on the way there. Just as I began, however, the sky suddenly darkened and a loud, thunderous chorus of voices echoed across the heavens. 

“DOH…VAH…KIIN!!!” 

My heart had practically stopped. It was the same word the dragon had said before it died. Did it have something to do with me? 

Apparently, the guard that had believed in me was feeling smug. “Don’t sound like legends and tales anymore to me.”


	4. Slayer

Everything was happening so fast I barely could keep track of what was going on. 

So, as it turned out, rumors of dragons returning to Skyrim were more than just rumors; they really were back. At least, that was what the terrified guard was explaining to me, Jarl Balgruuf, and the Jarl’s Housecarl, a stern-looking dark elf named Irileth. 

“Go on, man, you have the Jarl’s attention” Irileth urged on, but the guard still took a few seconds to collect himself. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could smell his sweat and hear his rough breathing; how long had he been running for? 

“S-sorry, h-housecarl… It was like I said, it just sort of flew around the west tower. I offered to come back and warn you. Never ran so fast in my life…” he finally replied, still out of breath. 

Balgruuf’s eyes softened just a little. “Easy, lad. You’ve done well, go and get yourself cleaned and rested. You’ve earned it.” 

The Jarl’s eyes turned me and I knew the question was coming. I was asked to help and, by the Nine, I was too foolhardy to deny his request. Irileth and I left the city with a handful of guards -she gave a rousing speech, as I recall- and headed for the Western Watchtower in search of the dragon. 

It was easy to tell that we were on the right track. 

By the time the tower was in sight, it looked it had been roasted. Chunks of stone were scattered in the surrounding field because of part of the watchtower being smashed. Flames still burned in small pockets around the tower ruins, but they weren’t much priority considering what we were preparing to face. 

“There’s no sign of a dragon now, but it sure looks like he’s been here” said Irileth. 

“Just look at this… How can we possibly stand up to that?” I heard one of the guards mutter. 

“Keep your wits about you. Are you a man or a coward?” Irileth responded, quick as a whip. I couldn’t tell if she was just acting tough or was honestly as brave as she seemed. I was hoping for the latter. “Spread out! It could still be near…” 

And we did…though maybe not as much as one imagines by ‘spreading out’. We were all nervous; and if we were lucky, the dragon would find the man next to us more appealing than we were. I sheathed my sword and slung my shield over my shoulder to take out my bow. The last thing I wanted to do was engage a dragon up close. The guards had been generous enough to lend me a quiver of steel arrows, and I intended on using them up first. I just hoped my training with Aela would pay off. 

Gods! Why didn’t I get the Companions to come help us? 

“You there! Erik!” I heard Irileth call out and I turned my head to look at her. She was pointing to the tower before she continued, “Go see if there are any survivors!” 

I sighed and began to approach the tower with my arrow already loaded. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it was difficult from the destruction I was seeing; I had to walk around more than a few charred and broken bodies. “Sovngarde awaits you…” I whispered whilst walking past. These poor bastards didn’t deserve this; how could any man deal with such power? I had a feeling I was going to find out soon, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it. 

“No, get back!” I heard a guard shout while running towards me…from the tower. I had to admit, it was nice seeing a survivor. His next words, however? Not so nice. “It’s still here somewhere! Hamgan and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!” 

“What? Where is it, man? I don’t see anything here.” I asked. 

“Guardsman! Where’s the dragon? Quickly now!” Irileth demanded behind me. 

I knew we shouldn’t have said something to tempt the gods, because that was when I heard the roar. Now, I’d heard loud roars before: wolves, sabretooths, and bears. But this? This shook the ground I was standing on, and it was only getting louder. 

“Kynareth save us, here he comes again…” the guard said, his voice oozing fear and I didn’t blame him. 

I didn’t see the dragon at first; the loud roars were bouncing off every object so the sound was hard to pin down. Suddenly, I noticed Irileth and the other guards scrambling for cover…away from me. 

“Damn it.” 

I turned and was amazed by what I saw. Brown scales glinted in the sun and large, leathery wings made the nearby trees sway as the beast descended. And by the Nine, I had never seen a monster so HUGE. Its head was as big as a man, and just as capable of swallowing one hole if given the chance. Its roars were loud enough to make my ears ring, such that I was barely able to hear Irileth calling out commands to the other guards. 

“Find cover!” I heard her shout, “Make every arrow count!” 

That was certainly a plan I could get behind. 

I dove behind a piece of rubble and drew my arrow back on my bow. I took aim, but it was hard to pin down the dragon while it was flying. Its movements were surprisingly fast and unpredictable, eventually some of the guards gave up on making arrows count and just hoped to hit something; I didn’t blame them. Finally, the beast paused whilst hovering or a couple guards, which had taken the opportunity to hit it with some arrows. Unfortunately, despite sticking into their target, the dragon hardly flinched. In an instant, the two men were engulfed in flames. I could smell the seared flesh from my position. 

“You bastard…” I cursed and let an arrow lose. It hit its mark right in the dragon’s armpit area; at least my training with Aela was indeed paying off. The dragon roared in pain, and began to seek me out. Being the brave and noble Nord I was, I slipped back behind my piece of stone and waited for it to turn its attention somewhere else. After all, I liked living the most. 

I could hear Irileth still directing the remainder of the guards. Although the arrows themselves seemed to do little damage on their own, the sheer number of them was enough to do some damage…or at least piss it off a little more. I stood out of my cover and prepared another arrow just in time to witness Irileth and a couple guards become engulfed in a huge ball of flame. 

“No!” I called out, figuring they were as good as dead. 

I fired another arrow and watched as it embedded itself in the flying beast’s wing. Apparently I had knicked a good spot, because the dragon seemed to be having a more difficult time moving that particular wing. Hopefully I had damaged some muscle. Suddenly, another arrow pierced a similar spot, and I turned to see Irileth standing amongst the flames, a chunk of her chestplate burned away, but her skin relatively uninjured. I had forgotten dark elves were particularly resistant to fire. “I’m not dead yet, beast!” she called out, and I had to admit it was pretty damn heroic. The second arrow finally forced the dragon to the ground. 

“Krif krin. Pruzah!” I heard a voice call out while the dragon roared. That was really weird; I could almost make out common tongue out of the foreign words. It was like they were on the tip of my tongue. 

I drew back another arrow on my bow and fired at the dragon, hitting it in the side of its neck and causing it to roar out in pain. Suddenly, its bronze eyes turned to me and I almost froze on the spot. 

“I had forgotten what fine sport you mortals can provide!” I distinctly heard the dragon say, leaving me too shocked to move. They could talk!? Luckily, I regained my senses just in time to dive behind cover before a volley of flames could burn me where I stood. The sudden rise in temperature left me panting. I peeked over my cover and saw Irileth, and what was left of the Whiterun guards, engaging the dragon. In the air it was harder to hit, sure, but on the ground it could move relative fast as well and those jaws were strong enough to easily rip through armor, as one guard was unfortunate enough to find out. The dragon tossed him around like a rag doll. 

“I am Mirmulnir!” I heard within the dragon’s roar. At least now I had a name to go with the pretty face. 

I drew my sword from its sheath; the ebony blade I had retrieved from Bleak Falls Barrow. I don’t know what had suddenly come over me, but something deep inside me told me I needed to get close to that dragon. Maybe I was experiencing bravado in denial too, but when I peeked over my rock and saw the dragon contently squaring off with Irileth and the other guards, I made my move. Having to sprint to get close to the dragon was why I preferred lighter armor. Most of my time spent with Eorlund was spent on creating a special type of armor for myself; light as leather but defensive as steel. I had donned our latest implementation of it just before I found myself helping the Jarl, and I was never more thankful for it than I was now. I had just gotten close enough to the dragon to attack it by the time it noticed me. 

Again, I don’t know what it was…but some instinct in my body was screaming at me on how to engage the dragon. It opened its huge maw and, seeing the flame beginning to build inside, I bashed the side of its jaws with my shield and forced its flames to stop in its throat, at the cost of my shield flying from my hand. Mirmulnir, as the dragon apparently called itself, turned its head back to me and opened its jaws again, this time to snap at me with every intention of ripping me apart from the waist up, but another quick instinct caused me to slash at the inside of its mouth with my sword. Blood gushed from the wound and the dragon shook its head in pain. I felt like the battle was going in my favor, but I still needed a bigger opening. 

“Now!” I shouted towards Irileth and the others, who had their bows already drawn and waiting. The suddenly volley of arrows striking the dragon’s head caused Mirmulnir to rear its long neck back to avoid them further, but in doing so I found my chance. 

“For Whiterun!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and, as Mirmulnir brought its head back down, I plunged the black blade deep into the base of the dragon’s neck. The creature cried in pain, and with a roar of determination of my own, I lead the blade up the dragon’s throat and spilled its blood into a pool around me. The mighty creature fell to the ground and, in that moment, I knew we had won. The dragon had been slain. 

But as if things hadn’t already been crazy enough, I was totally unprepared for the result of my victory. 

The dragon, with its last breaths, seemed to come to a sudden realization as it lay dying. It let out a final cry of defeat, in which I clearly heard the words “Dovahkiin? No!” contained within. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part. As the dragon drew its last breath, a strange sensation suddenly coursed through me like a powerful river. 

“Let’s make sure the overgrown lizard is really dead,” I heard Irileth said from behind me. 

The dragon’s body began to burn away into some form of energy, which soon began to flow towards my body like a strange wind. 

“Get back!” Irileth shouted, but I was stuck on the spot. 

The feeling was unexplainable; there was no pain, but I had to grit my teeth from the intensity. My body was tingling all over and, suddenly, I felt a strange sensation suddenly grow in my more. By the time the energy finished transferring, the dragon was nothing but bones and some faint flesh. And everyone was staring at me. 

“What…was that?” I asked, breathless. 

“That dragon…? What did you do to-” One of the guards began to say before he was interrupted. 

The strange power that had manifested in me was suddenly trying to crawl out, or at least show itself. An ancient and powerful instinct suddenly flashed in my mind, and I suddenly felt a word on my tongue that I couldn’t help but shout as loud as I could. 

“FUS!!!” was the word that erupted from my throat, and from it a form of bluish…force…cleared the smoke that was lingering around the dragon’s throat. I knew that wasn’t normal, and I could feel everyone’s eyes drilling into me now more than ever. There was a long silence before someone finally spoke. 

“You… You’re dragonborn.” I heard one of the guards say. 

I turned to him, incredibly confused. “Dragon-what?” 

“You defeated the dragon and consumed its soul, just like the legends laid. You even spoke in their voice.” 

“That’s right,” another guard observed, “My grandfather used to tell stories of the dragonborn all the time.” 

The guards soon began to bicker amongst themselves over whether or not I was what they figured I was, but in that moment my whole world shattered. “Dragonborn? What in oblivion does that mean?” I asked myself. I glanced towards Irileth, and she also seemed as though she was making up her mind about me. 

“What do you say, Irileth? You’re being awfully quiet” a guard suddenly asked that brought me back into their conversation. 

“Come on, Irileth,” added a guard impatiently, “Tell us. Do you believe in this dragonborn business?” 

“Some of you would be better off keeping quiet than flapping your gums over matters you know nothing about.” Irileth suddenly responded with a snort, and gestured towards the skeletal remains of the Mirmulnir. “Here’s a dead dragon. And that’s something I definitely understand. Now we know we can kill them, and I don’t need some mythical dragonborn. Someone who can put down a dragon is more than enough for me.” 

“You wouldn’t understand, housecarl,” one of the guards, the one who had been talking me up, replied, “You ain’t a Nord.” 

“I’ve been all across Tamriel,” Irileth responded, “I’ve seen plenty of things just as outlandish as this. I’d advise all of you to trust in the strength of your sword arm over tales and legends.” 

Finally, Irileth turned to me. If she wanted to know what my opinion was, she didn’t ask. 

“I’m taking command here, for the moment” she said, “Go back to the Jarl and report what happened here.” 

I nodded, and turned to do so; I knew I had a lot to think about on the way there. Just as I began, however, the sky suddenly darkened and a loud, thunderous chorus of voices echoed across the heavens. 

“DOH…VAH…KIIN!!!” 

My heart had practically stopped. It was the same word the dragon had said before it died. Did it have something to do with me? 

Apparently, the guard that had believed in me was feeling smug. “Don’t sound like legends and tales anymore to me."


	5. Chasing Tail

The sun was fading behind dark clouds as I walked up the path to Falkreath, carrying nothing but the armor and weapons on my back, a small pack slung over my shoulder, and a few hundred gold I had tied to my belt that I had saved before I left Whiterun. It had been a pretty long journey, but the letter from Falkreath’s Jarl made it seem like there was something specific he had in mind for me, and I was hoping that would involve a lot of coin. 

By the time I walked through the city gates, it had begun to rain and I had my hood up from my cloak to keep some semblance of dryness. I mostly kept my head low as I walked past people; not that there was anyone I wanted to avoid, but the events of the past few days had left me a little tired of dealing with people. 

Of course, the divines always seemed to have a funny sense of humor. 

“Hey there, traveler! You happen to see a dog while on the road?” A guard asked me as I walked past him. 

“Nope,” I answered with a stop, but didn’t turn to look at him, “I’ve seen plenty of wolves, but no dogs.” 

“I see. Well, if you happen to see one near here, the blacksmith Lod is interested in it. Even offered to pay a little coin for it. So let me know if you see it.” 

“I certainly will.” 

Of course, I had absolutely no intention of doing that. Truth be told, I was tempted to go talk to this Lod myself. Maybe after my business with the Jarl was done, but it did remind me of what I had came here to do...but the sudden rumble in my stomach also reminded me I had more immediate concerns. Luckily for me, a tavern was no more than a dozen yards away, and It was called the “Dead Man’s Drink”, no less. Sounded like a nice place. 

I stepped inside, and the interior of the tavern was at least decent. Nothing like the Bannered Mare, naturally, but it seemed suitable enough for what I needed: food and drink, perhaps even some rest later if I stayed long enough. I sat down after pulling my cowl off and innkeeper behind the counter barked for one of the waitresses to serve me. 

“Oh my, handsome man in Falkreath” the woman said as she walked over to my table. It was a common courtesy for her, no doubt. I bet she said that to all the travelers for the inn’s sake. “What’ll it be,” she asked. 

“Just some cooked beef and a bottle of mead,” I replied to her, “I don’t really care what kind.” 

She smiled; it was a nice smile, at least. I was sure she was one of the reasons the place was so booming. When she left to fetch me my order, I sighed and rested my head on my balled fist while a wave of exhaustion flooded over me. The hot fire burning in the middle of the inn at least warmed me up after my cold walk and I let my eyes wander around the inn. 

That was when I saw her; the woman sitting across the inn. I wasn’t sure how long she had been staring at me for, but when our eyes met we both instinctively glanced away. I looked back after a few moments when I sure she wasn’t doing the same and looked her over. She was slim, but not overly so   
for her kind, I’d fought with enough Imperials and Nords in the Imperial Army to know the difference between the women. Her hair was a deep red that almost glowed in the fire and, despite the simple clothes she wore, I knew she had a respectable figure. For a moment, I wondered if I should talk her; I mean, what other reason could she have been staring at me so intently, after all? Before I could act, however, my meal had arrived and I was more than content to slip the servant girl, Narri as she was apparently named, the coin I owed, plus a few extra for the smile, from my coin pouch. 

I wolfed down the meat like there was no tomorrow. It was one of the unfortunate side-effects of the beast blood in me; I couldn’t stop myself from craving meat. Better I purchased it from a tavern and looked at least like a civilized savage than a literal savage preying on a farmer’s livestock, or worse. I had gotten into a regular routine to deal with the price of my…gift. Meat to satisfy the hunger, and mead to dull the body a little bit. I learned pretty quick in the Companions that the reason the circle seemed to like drinking so much late at night, aside from it being a very warrior tradition, was that the alcohol numbed the beast blood a little and made it easier to sleep. It was very difficult to do, otherwise. 

When I was finished, I stood and stretched; it was time to see what the Jarl wanted. Just as I was walking to the door, however, the red-haired woman from before stepped in front me, her face looking a little flushed. “Do you have a second? I need your help…” she asked meekly. 

“Oh, uh… What is it?” I replied. I had almost forgotten about her, but her sudden appearance had caught me off guard. 

“I lost something of mine nearby, a family heirloom.” She continued, starting to sound more confident in her tone. “Er… It was a locket, gold with an emerald in the center. I think I dropped it nearby while traveling. If you could help me find it, I’d gladly pay you for the trouble. I can lead you to where I think I dropped it, even.” 

“You…think you know where it is, and you haven’t looked yet yourself?” I asked, curiously. 

Something changed in her eyes; I couldn’t tell if she seemed annoyed at something. “Well… I just remembered where it might be just now, and I thought a capable man like yourself keep any robbers at bay.” 

Made perfect sense to me, and not just because her top was cut a little low and distracted me…a little bit. Maybe this was just her way of hitting on me, if nothing else. “Oh. Alright then, lead on!” 

I followed her outside of the tavern and around behind it. I had to admit, it was not the most romantic place to do anything, but who was I to judge? She paused after walking a little bit into the bush and seemed to be looking around. “I think I dropped it around here somewhere… Do you see it?” she asked, looking back at me with those vivid green eyes. I had to impress her by finding it now. 

I looked around, but nothing seemed to stand out at me. I couldn’t imagine what she was doing back here…maybe coming back from the cemetery that was close by? I walked past her to check there, but I was having a hard time seeing clearly with the rain coming down. Maybe if I had a torch or something, it would help. 

“Are you sure you dropped it around here? Maybe-” 

I was interrupted by a very strong knock to the back of my head. I stumbled and fell face-first into the mud, my senses dazed from whatever had hit me. I wasn’t sure how long I had been lying there, but for a while it was difficult to stay conscious. During that time, I thought I felt someone tugging at my belt…and not in the fun way. “Sorry, love. Nothing personal. Just need to relieve you of your coin. Take care now!” I heard a smug, but familiar voice say. 

“What in Oblivion…?” I asked while finally being able to pick myself up. Suddenly, the words that woman spoke hit me like the blow to the head had and I felt my belt only to find my bag of coin was gone! “That bitch!” I swore while looking around, and luckily, I could see a feminine shape sprinting away between the tavern and other building. “Get back here!” I shouted while taking off after her. 

Just like that, the chase was on.


	6. Honor and Thieves

I don’t think I had ever run so fast in life. 

I cursed myself for letting that woman rob me; some Dragonborn hero I turned out to be if I let myself so easily be fooled. I mean, I could only half blame myself for so chivalrous for wanting to help a fair maiden out…even if my reasons were a little less than honorable. But that didn’t make thieving right!

I rounded the corner of the tavern and looked down both sides of the main road through Falkreath, but my nose caught her scent before my eyes did. Normally the rain would make tracking difficult, but luckily for me she had a very strong smell to her, like she had bathed herself in lavender or something. Women were funny that way, I guess. I followed her distinct scent in the direction that led outside of town. By the Nine, I sure hoped she didn’t have a horse standing by for her getaway.

For whatever reason, my luck seemed to be on the up and up after it let so far down. I had just ran a hundred yards past the city gates before I caught up to her…and her guard entourage that was currently surrounding her.

“You have committed crimes against Skyrim and her people! What say you in your defense?” One of the guards surrounding the thief demanded.

“H-Hey! I… Uh… I can explain! Really!” she replied nervously.

Words could not explain how much I was enjoying this. I just stood there, behind all the guards, with my arms crossed and a very amused smirk on my face. “Oh, can you now?” I asked smugly.

She just seemed to notice me, then, and the look of defeat on her face was incredibly satisfying. All I had to do was explain what really happened and everything would resolve itself: I’d get my coin back and she would be locked up in jail. The guards seemed to notice me now too, and one of them seemed to already have a pretty good grasp on the situation. Maybe he could see the bump that was forming on the back of my head.

“Is everything all right? You know this girl?” The clever guard asked, sheathing his sword as he approached me.

This was it; I could finally get my just-desserts from this thief. I don’t know what possessed me, however, when I looked over the guard’s shoulder and caught that ‘please help me look’ she was now wearing for me. Was it genuine? In this situation, I had the feeling it was. Did I really care? Well…

“This is all a huge mistake. She’s actually with me…” Was the almost foreign words that had left my mouth. Everyone seemed taken by surprise, but no one looked more shock than her.

“You expect me to believe that?” He asked incredulously.

Oh shit. He was calling my bluff. I had to come up with something fast.

“Hehe… Yeah, I assure you, she’s done nothing wrong. I thought I saw that dog the blacksmith was looking for and we tried to chase after it…then I sorta tripped and hit my head…” I grinned cheekily and rubbed the back of my head, able to feel the starting of a decent bump growing there. It was all to mask my major uncertainty, though. I had no idea why I felt I had to stick my neck out for this girl, or what would happen if they didn’t believe me. There was a long pause, but the guard finally shrugged.

“Hmm… I don’t like it, but I’ll overlook it. This time.” He said in a low, still slightly disbelieving tone before turning to everyone else. “Everything appears to be in order. You can move along now.”

And they all left, leaving me able to exhale the huge breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. I watched them go, but I also kept an eye on my new friend. It seemed to take her a long time to speak; I guess she was still processing things too.

“That was…unexpected. Why did you help me?” she asked, gracious but at the same time very curious.

I didn’t really have a good answer for her.

“Uh… Well… You were just kinda looking in trouble, and…” I sort of fumbled out. ‘Damn it, Erik! Get it together!’ “It… Usually takes someone pretty skilled to get the drop on me like that… And… Someone with skills like yours could be…very helpful to me on my adventures…” Talos forgive me, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Here I go and get this girl out of trouble AFTER she robs my ass like a chump and now, what? I just expect her to join up with me? Just like that? Idiot…

“You have an eye for talent.” She suddenly said, and I looked up to see a very smug grin, “Okay then, I guess I owe you one.”

Nailed it?

“Really? I, uh… I mean, yeah, that sounds like a deal to me. I could definitely use someone watching my back,” I explained to her, starting to get myself back on track from my earlier uncertainty. I started walking back into Falkreath and she followed beside me. “So, uh… What do you do? Are you some kind of adventurer?” She asked while we walked.

“What? Oh, yeah. I wander about. Sometimes sell my sword out for someone with an honorable enough reason to call for it. You know, brave and noble warrior, and whatnot…” I explained to her.

“Who follows pretty women behind taverns?” she asked cheekily.

“Only when they need help finding lockets,” I replied quickly, my usual wit finally returning, “Speaking of which…”

She sighed to herself, instantly knowing what I was referring to when I held out my hand to her. She plopped my bag of gold into my open palm without any argument, as if it was the least she could do.

“Right… Anyways, Arissa Acies Aufero, pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said.

“You can call me Erik, because…well, that’s my name,” I replied. I really sucked at introductions.

“Erik, huh? Well, if you need a lock picked, or a trap disarmed, I’m your woman,” she retorted, still sporting that smug and confident tone, “You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

We walked in silence for a while after that, but I had a good feeling my instincts were going to be right; I knew she was going to be useful. We walked together through Falkreath until I stopped in front of the Longhouse, where the Jarl of Falkreath lived. Arissa finally spoke again once she figured out why we were here. “Come to see the Jarl, eh? Not too big a fan of the man, myself… He seems a little too…well, you’ll see.”

“I guess I will,” was all I said as I pushed open the door to the Longhouse and entered.

I had to admit, Arissa had a point: something seemed off. In Whiterun, Dragonsreach seemed to grand and the atmosphere was everything you’d expect from a Nordic lord. The Longhouse, however, was far less grand by comparison. There seemed to be a couple people moving about, but they lacked the same energy. Sitting towards the back was the Jarl himself, Siddgeir was it? He certainly didn’t look as impressive as Balgruuf. Still, he apparently needed my help and he definitely had the coin to pay for me, so I could certainly look past all that. I approached Siddgeir; I noticed a few nervous looks as if I had done something wrong, but I paid them no mind.

“You summoned me?” I asked.

“Hmm? Ah, yes, you must be Erik… I suppose now we’ll see if all the stories regarding you are true.“ he replied when he noticed me. He had that arrogant tone that already started to bug me. I glanced back at Arissa, whose ears seemed to prick up when there was some mention of me and stories. I cleared my throat to try and hurry things along. Arissa was right about one thing, something about Siddgeir seemed…off, to me.

“Well, in any case, there’s a group of bandits outside in my Hold that I…may have had a few discrete dealings with,” he continued, “The cut they were giving me was good at first, but now it’s time to clean things up. Go and take care of it.”

“You just let a group of bandits get comfortable in your Hold?” I asked, gritting my teeth a little. If there was one thing I hated almost as much as the Thalmor, it was brigands harassing innocent people. Siddgeir seemed to pick up on my disdain and only seemed to chuckle.

“Is that going to be a problem for one of The Circle?” he asked smugly.

I looked away, as to not show him my growing anger. “No… It will be done.”

“Good. You’d be doing Falkreath a great service,” he said and leaned back in his throne, seemingly content with himself.

I turned away from him and walked out of The Longhouse without another word, with Arissa following close behind me. When we were out, and out of the earshot of any Jarls or nosy guards, she finally seemed to speak up. “Yeah, like I said… Not a big fan.”

“A man who would let brigands ransack his lands for gold doesn’t deserve to be called Jarl,” I said plainly, my voice low and full of spite.

“Don’t worry, people like that get what they deserve in the end… Besides…” Arissa continued after she took out an expensive-looking amulet and began to twirl it around her fingers, “Does this look valuable to you? I found it in the Jarl’s room while he was talking to you. He didn’t seem to mind me…borrowing it.”

I was shocked. She stole something almost right in front of the Jarl’s face? That was borderline crazy! She seemed to notice my shocked expression and giggled. “There you go, doesn’t stealing from the rich and corrupt look fun? You uptight nord warriors should learn to relax…”

“You know, if you get caught, I won’t help you next time,” I told her, finding it a little easier to smile now.  
“Hehe… I won’t get caught next time, but who knows? You haven’t seen me at my best yet. People like that man always seem to have nice stuff just…lying around,” she explained, “You going to mind if I relieve people like that of their belongings?”  
“Heh… You know, Arissa, I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship,” I said.  
For once, I had the feeling I wasn’t totally wrong.


	7. A Slice of Our History

I had to admit, for simple brigands, these bandits at least had an interesting set up. They took over some kind of wooden overpass that the main road east of Falkreath ran under, and set themselves up along the top of it to have some higher ground when they extorted their victims. Unfortunately for them, it also left them kind of easy to make out from below, and easy targets for a well-placed arrow. 

I had my bow drawn from the cover of some bushes just off the side of the road, and beside me Arissa had done the same. I counted the number of people we would have to worry about; six, if you were curious. Most of them were wandering around across the overpass, talking amongst themselves but I really couldn’t hear the conversation that well. It wasn’t going to matter in a few seconds anyways. 

“I got the big ugly one...” Arissa whispered beside me, drawing back on her bow. 

“You’re going to have be more specific,” I replied, earning a stifled chuckle from her. 

“Okay… The one who looks like he downs a dozen roasted goat legs a day,” she retorted. 

“Oh… Yeah, he’s all yours.” 

I chose my own target that was standing on one of the towers, who looked to be near some kind of switch; I didn’t trust switches. I whispered a quiet countdown, and we both let our arrows loose. I could hear the faint whizzing as the two pointy objects soared through the air and eventually found their marks, which came followed a couple surprised and pained grunts and gurgles. Sometimes, if one was lucky, you could sneakily take out a whole group of bandits without a single soul realizing it, and the poor weather made me a little hopeful. Unfortunately, these two refused to die quiet, and Arissa and I had to be a little less cautious with our next couple shots. 

“We got archers in the woods, boss!” I heard one brigand call out to the rest and point in our general direction. 

“Let’s move,” I whispered to Arissa and she nodded. 

We kept low and moved through the forest, trying find ourselves a new set up before the rest of the bandits could pin down our position. These guys weren’t totally clueless, however, and most of the remaining hostiles started to descend from the overpass to try and find us. One guy stayed up top to try and warn his buddies about us from there, but it made him an easy target. I stood up from my position and took aim. My movement caught his attention, but he was too late to respond before my arrow nailed him right through the eye. 

Finding the others wasn’t going to be as easy, as the steady rain and dimming light made finding them almost as difficult as it was for them to find us. The noise a couple of them were making made them easy to pinpoint, but it also masked the searching from the others. Arissa found another opening and landed another arrow in another bandit’s back. 

“That’s another one down,” I heard her whisper victoriously. I didn’t think there could be very many of them left. 

Suddenly I felt a strong tug on the back of my cloak and next thing I knew I was ripped to the ground. 

“I got one!” the large nord shouted towards what was left of his comrades. 

I was too stunned to respond immediately, and while I struggled to unsheathe my sword, the man raised his war axe in preparation to cut me in two. For a moment I thought that was going to be it for me; the legend of the mighty Dragonborn being bested by one lucky bandit. Fortunately, it seemed my legend wasn’t meant to die yet as the man stopped when an arrow struck him right in the back. He howled in pain and, seeing my moment, I plunged my sword deep into his chest and brought him down to the ground. 

“Not today, my friend…” I said, panting before looking towards Arissa, who was grinning her usual smug grin for her timely rescue. I grinned back, but my eyes widened when I saw another shape moving behind her, and the flash of an iron weapon in the dim light. 

“Get down!” I shouted to her, followed by a loud, “FUS!” 

Arissa dropped to the ground just in time for the bluish shockwave to pass over her and strike the armed man behind her. Wasting no time, she pulled out a dagger from the sheath on her lower back and stabbed the bandit while he was stumbling back, causing him to howl in pain for just a few seconds before I cleared his head from his neck in one well-placed slash. 

“That… Was close…” I said, panting. 

“Yeah, thanks…. Damn, I almost had you owing me one for a change,” she replied, sheathing her dagger. 

“Tomorrow’s a new day,” I encouraged her, and we both smiled to each other before moving amongst the corpses and looting what coin and equipment we could. Like usual, there’s wasn’t much to collect; just a couple weapons that weren’t too badly damaged and a little less than a hundred gold for us to split with each other. We decided to make camp just a little ways into the forest, so I managed to find a relative dry spot and get a fire going while Arissa set up the tents. 

“So… How did you do that, exactly?” she asked suddenly while I was blowing on the fire to feed it. 

“Do what?” I questioned in return, although I had a pretty good idea about what she was asking about. 

“That thing…with your voice. I think you know what I’m talking about” she said, sounding a little annoyed. 

I sighed; I hadn’t explained to her about my encounter with the dragon near Whiterun, nor a great deal of other things during our few days tracking the network of bandits across Falkreath. In fact, neither of us new much about each other save for our names and current professions. I hesitated to answer and Arissa, sharp as steel dragger, seemed to realize that I didn’t really want to talk about it. Unfortunately for me, Arissa was a woman that was more curious than understanding. 

“Tell you what… You tell me a little about yourself, and I’ll do the same,” she suggested, opening up a bottle of nord mead and taking a swig before offering some to me. 

“Alright, alright…” I said, giving in and downing half the bottle of mead, much to Arissa’s amusement, before continuing, “So, have you ever heard of the legend of the Dragonborn…?” 

Arissa seemed to ponder the question, as though I had given her some kind of riddle. “Of…course. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a couple stories about it here and there in Skyrim. Why? You some kind of legend?” 

She was joking, I could tell. I chuckled a little nervously. “Well…some folk think I am. Ever since I killed a dragon and absorbed some kind of power from it…” 

Arissa laughed. “You? Dragonborn? Right, and I’m the goddess Dibella herself. I don’t think the deal counted cheating!” 

“Hey, you saw what I did!” I said, feeling a little offended that she thought I was lying. “Dragonborns have some kind of power with their voice, right? I WAS able to do it right after I stole the power from that dragon…” 

I sounded like I was trying to convince myself as much as her. At least she understood I was serious enough and stifled her giggles. 

“Hey, that’s all your business. Not mine…” she retorted, leaning back from the fire so that she was partially in her tent, “As for me… Well, I asked you something, right? Go ahead and ask me something.” 

“Alright, how long have you been a thief for?” I asked, surprising her a little bit by how quickly I had chosen my question. The truth was that I had been pondering it for some time. 

“Long enough…since I was young. Everyone needs to get by somehow, right?” she explained. 

I found her answer a little odd; she didn’t look to me like someone who grew up poor in the streets. How she carried herself suggested someone who was taught, at least in some manner. She blended in too well with the pretty ladies I had seen in Solitude. No, I felt like I had been given a half answer. 

“C’mon, there has to be more to it than that…” I said, cracking open my own bottle of mead and drinking it. 

“Maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t… Maybe if you actually end up being the ‘Oh powerful Dragonborn’ I’ll tell ya more,” she said with a cheeky grin. Even I had to chuckle a little that. 

“Alright, so long as I can trust a born and raised thief like you…” I replied with another large sip; the mead was doing its job. 

“It’s not like I’m going to lure you behind a tavern again and steal your gold, if that’s what you’re worried about. Besides, who knows how many guards you have secretly lying in wait for when I try,” she responded back quickly. Talos, the girl was sharp, indeed. 

We made some more idle chatter for a little longer, at least until we were both finished our respective bottles. Arissa decided to turn in after that and I sat in front of the fire for a little longer, keeping it stoked while looking up at the moon that was peaking out from behind the dissipating clouds. I drank another two bottles of mead before bed so that I was sufficiently buzzed enough to sleep somewhat properly; the close call of the day had left my beast blood particularly hot. I knew I was going to have to   
hunt soon, or else the blood could cause an unwilling transformation, as Aela had explained to me briefly a while back. I didn’t think Arissa would appreciate that too much. With a heavy sigh and laid down in my little tent and listened to sounds of Skyrim’s night before falling into an uneasy sleep. 

When I awoke, I found myself being stared at by two bright eyes belonging to some dog and a rather annoying, loud voice echoing in my skull. 

“Why, hello there! You are exactly what I was looking for!” it rang. 

By the Nine, what had I stumbled onto this time?


	8. Barbas' Task

“Ugh… I forgot how the weather this close to the mountain sucks,” Arissa sighed as she clutched the extra layer of furs closer to her. 

“Hey, it only gets better from here,” I lied, and Arissa’s incredibly annoyed look that she shot at me told me that she knew it as well. I was content with just my armor and cloak, myself; nord blood at its finest. 

“You two sure love to bicker,” came the third voice that echoed in both of our heads. 

I looked between us to see the dog that was our new traveling companion panting up at both of us. The mutt, Barbas, was apparently its name. Oh, yeah, the dog actually told me its name. Not with words, exactly… Its mouth never really moved when it spoke. Whenever it seemed to communicate with someone, it just seemed to project its voice right into their mind. Yeah, it was just as weird as it sounded. Only half as weird as me and Arissa accepting a job from it. A job involving a Daedric Prince. Apparently Barbas wanted to get back to his master, who was the previously mentioned Daedric Prince, and he needed our help to get there. 

“So, let me get this straight, Barbas...” Arissa began, apparently as unsure of the situation as I was. “Clavicus Vile is the Daedric Prince of Wishes…and you’re his…dog?” 

“Yeah, what’s so weird about that?” Barbas asked, sounding a little offended. 

“What does a Daedric Prince need with a dog?” I chimed in, curious as well. 

Barbas’ expression, being one that belonged to a dog, was virtually unreadable. His tone, however, made it seem like he was a little annoyed. “Well, why do mortals keep hounds around? We’re smart…and loyal too!” 

“And a little annoying…” I sighed, and barely moved my hand away in time before Barbas tried snapping at my fingers with a growl. 

“Maybe he got lonely…” Arissa added in suddenly, “Do Daedra get lonely?” 

“Who knows?” I replied. 

We didn’t make much progress with that conversation. The weather seemed to calm down a little as he continued down the road; the wind and snow had subsided so all that was left was the cold, lingering air. We were heading to some shrine dedicated to Clavicus, because apparently the Daedra was weakened without Barbas with him and that meant he couldn’t appear far from said shrine. Why a Daedra would cripple himself by banishing Barbas was beyond me. 

“Hey, what’s that over there?” I asked as some sort of fortress came into view while the sun began descending behind the mountains. 

“I think that’s Helgand…” Arissa answered, far faster than I would have expected. “Apparently, that’s where the first dragon attack was.” 

“I heard a similar rumor.” 

When we finally got to Helgen, I wasn’t convinced it was a rumor any longer. I had heard the fortress was a military outpost, but from the state we found it in, there was no way it could be called that now. The place had been almost completely reduced to rubble and, what wasn’t rubble, was severely burned. It reminded me of the tower back near Whiterun; evidence of a dragon attack, if I had ever saw it. Seeing the place now, it seemed like a ghost town. 

Well, except for the band of brigands that had apparently moved in. We managed to come across the bandits before they noticed us, which allowed for us to use our usual strategy; I lure them out and Arissa find somewhere to pick them off stealthily with a bow. This group didn’t prove to be all that resistant to that tactic either, which was a nice change of pace. I mainly relied on a defensive stance that favored my shield forward between me and them, which allowed me to block any attack pretty easily. Arissa would thin out the herd for me, and less bandits meant I could eventually fight more aggressively. 

Barbas even added a new element to our strategy; as it turns out, possessing the power of a Daedra means you don’t die easily. Barbas would snarl and bite, but whenever he was struck by a sword or arrow it just…didn’t hurt him. Blood would be drawn but when the weapon was removed, the wound would simply be gone. Needless to say, an immortal hound caused a lot of confusion, and we managed to clear out the riff-raff in Helgen in record time. In the end, we even found a mostly intact watch tower to stay in for the night. 

The inside of the tower wasn’t too special, but it did have a few extra furs and a couple rollout beds for us to sleep on. It certainly was better than sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Arissa made a small fire inside and, when she was content it would survive on its own for a few hours, curled up in her furs. Barbas didn’t seem to care what he slept on, so long as he was close to the fire. 

“Where are we heading to again, Barbas?” I asked as I took a couple gulps of my mead. 

“His shrine is in a place called Haemar’s Shame,” Barbas reminded me. 

“Right… And there’s a cult there worshipping him. Will they be trouble?” 

“Probably.” 

“Are we going to have to kill them?” 

“Most likely.” 

“Fantastic…” 

I didn’t go to sleep easy that night, even with the shelter and the extra bottles of mead. It was a few weeks since I had last…hunted, and my blood was as restless as ever. I knew I was going to have to find an excuse to get out within the next couple nights; the urge was unbearable. I still hadn’t told Arissa I was a werewolf and I had no intention to unless I needed to. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but   
something like this was personal. I finally understood why the other members of the Circle didn’t talk about it. 

When we awoke, we wasted no time packing up and leaving Helgen. The sky was clearer than it had been in the past couple days, so for once it wasn’t so cold that Arissa felt the need to cover her face from the wind. Soon we were walking along the base of The Throat of the World, and once we found the narrow path that forged through the rock and ice we found ourselves in front of a pair of subtle-looking doors. Without Barbas barking at them like a piece of his favorite cooked beef was on the other side, I would never have guessed that these led to a Daedric shrine. Of course, I would have been far too distracted by the corpses we found just outside. 

“What happened to these sorry bastards…?” I asked whilst crouching over one of the corpses in the snow. 

“I don’t know… They don’t look quite right though…” Arissa replied sort of off handily before she realized how she sounded, “Aside from them being dead, anyways!” 

I brushed away more of the snow that had began to cover the body and that was when I noticed them; two identical puncture wounds on one nord’s neck. Immediately, one explanation for these deaths came to mind, and I wasn’t a fan of it. 

“Vampires…” I said under my breath, but still within ear shot of Arissa. 

“Vampires? Are you sure?” she asked, but then noticed the same marks I did. “Oh… Yeah…seems like vampires…” 

I noticed Barbas seemed a little too quiet, and I turned to look at him. He met my eyes before looking away quickly; he looked like a dog that had just taken a huge dump on the dining room carpet. 

“Barbas… What sort of cult is it?” I asked. 

“Er… Well… I was kinda hoping they would have moved on by now…” Barbas began before his voice trailed off. 

“Barbas?” I asked again. 

“…Yes?” 

“Is it a cult of vampires?” 

“…Yes…” 

At this point, I could hear Arissa swearing to herself and, to be honest, I didn’t blame her. We had become pretty adept at killing brigands together, but vampires? That was a whole new kind of fight. They had a whole new set of tricks and, apparently, could infect you with only one scratch. Well, they could infect Arissa, anyways. My beast blood came with a few perks, at least, and one of them was immunity to disease. Luckily for me, vampirism fell under that category, but Arissa didn’t have the same insurance. It was her sake that had me worried. 

“Erik… How are we going to do this?” Arissa asked me, looking more than a little nervous. 

“I…don’t know…” I lied, at least partially. I had an idea, but I didn’t think it was a good one… 

“We can’t fight a bunch of vampires with just the two of us! Not in their den, anyways… You can’t ambush the best ambush predators…” she explained. 

I figured she was right, of course. We’d be stumbling right into a vampire nest and, even though I was immune to the disease, that didn’t mean I could die from a sword to the gut or an ice shard to the face. Even with an immortal hound as back up… No, it was still a bad idea. 

“Maybe if we had known before, we could have bought some special gear, or something!” Arissa continued, seeming to grow more and more flustered as she went on. “Damnit! Erik, do you have any ideas?” 

I didn’t answer. 

“Erik?” she pressed; sounding more desperate than ever. “Erik!” 

“Yes…” I answered suddenly, catching her off guard. 

“Wait… You do?” she asked after a few seconds, sounding sceptical. 

“Yeah, but… Arissa, you’re not going to like it…” I replied with a sigh. I had made up my mind. 

“Well… Don’t keep us in suspense. What is it?” 

“C’mon,” was all I said, and pushed open the doors to Haemar’s Shame. Arissa seemed to hesitate, before following behind me with a “Wait!”, but I ignored her. Barbas followed behind us, seeming curious as well. 

We entered Haemar’s Shame together and I made note of the fact that the interior was like an icy cavern, which was to be expected considering the doors were on the side of a chunk of icy rock. I inhaled deepy from my nose and, sure enough, I could smell them; like the draugr, vampired smelled a lot like the undead, which I supposed was rather fitting. And there were a lot of them. 

“Okay…” I said finally and began to unbuckle the sheath with my sword in it and handed it, along with my other weapons and equipment, to Arissa. 

“Wait, what are you doing…?” she asked in confusion, but I didn’t say anything right away. I removed my cloak and began to unfasten my armor as well, and by this point Arissa’s face began to flush as she realized what exactly I was doing. Her temporary uncomfortableness was soon replaced by impatience. “Whoa there, big guy… TELL me what your plan is!” she demanded. 

“I really don’t want to ruin my armor for this. The change, it…really messes it up,” I answered flatly before sighing, and looking at her after I took my upper clothes off. “Arissa… Make sure you follow close behind me… But not too close, alright? Things are going to get a little fuzzy for me…” 

“Erik, I have no idea what’s going on.” 

“Arissa, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you… Just trust me, okay?” 

She nodded, but I could tell she was still confused. I took everything save for my trousers; even as a nord, being this exposed chilled me to the bone. Being half naked in front of a woman in a non-intimate setting? At least my flushed face was warm. 

“When this happens, just stay back for a bit,” I told her and walked a little bit further into the cave. 

“Erik, what’s going to happen?” Arissa asked pleadingly behind me, and gasped when she heard voices coming from in front of us…and towards us. 

I heard the voices too, in fact I heard them approaching long before they had said anything. We hadn’t exactly entered quietly, and by now someone finally seemed to take notice of our poor house manners. When I saw two sets of glowing red eyes staring at us from the shadows, I figured it was time to make my move. My body began to burn. 

The transformation part about becoming a werewolf was, by far, the most uncomfortable. I could never get used to the unpleasant sensation of my bones and muscles shifting suddenly in my body to accommodate my new shape; it felt like my arms and legs were being stretched like taffy and my skull…hurt like Oblivion itself was poised to pull it apart. Soon, the chill that wracked my body began to recede as, not only the fur that had spread across my body contained the heat, but my beast blood as well began to boil with anticipation. What had begun as discomfort was soon replaced by a delicious sense of adrenaline. As my transformation finished, a loud snarl erupted from my throat and echoed off the cold walls of the cave, followed by a long howl. 

The hunt was about to begin.


	9. Predator and Prey

“Die, monster!” One of the vampires called out. 

He swung his sword, but he might as well have been moving in slow motion. With a snarl and a quick slash of sharp claws, the vampire fell against the cold ice with his wounds bleeding profusely. The second tried to use a life draining spell on me, but there was no way it would take effect fast enough. I grabbed the hand casting the spell and hurled it, and the body it was connected to, against the rocky wall with enough force that I could hear bones shattering. 

“ARG-WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I howled out victoriously. 

By the Nine, I had forgotten how good this felt… 

“Erik…?” I heard Arissa ask. 

And that there…was the catch. I turned towards the entrance to the cave and, even with all my senses in overdrive, I could still see Arissa and Barbas standing there and Arissa had her bow drawn and was aiming…at me. Awkward. 

So… I’d like to say we had some sort of deep heart to heart by just staring at each other; some beast and beauty shenanigans. Of course, nothing in my life ever went that smoothly, and what really happened was a really awkward staring contest. Thankfully, and in a way I never thought I’d be thankful for, I could smell more vampires approaching; anything to get me out of this situation. At least if Arissa decided not to shoot me I could at least trust that she…well, trusted me a little. 

I turned and snarled as more enemies approached, thankful I wasn’t shot in the back at all. I didn’t just wait for them to come to me this time, either. I charged forward on all fours, digging my claws into the ice and rock to keep enough traction to maintain my speed so that I could jump onto the walkway in front of me. There were a couple men waiting for me, obviously not vampires by their sent, but probably thralls the blood-suckers were using to help them. I could hear their beating hearts in their chests which had begun to increase in pace significantly when they saw me. 

It was a sound I couldn’t resist. 

I pinned one man down before he could properly react and, with one swift action, bit into his chest with large and powerful jaws. His flesh gave way like warm butter, although his chest had a little more crunch to it than I had suspected. I ate his heart right in front of his ally, who was not quite as phased as I had expected him to be. I felt a dagger cut into my hide, prompting a growl from deep in my throat. I roared as I turned to face my attacker and he staggered back in response; his hesitation left him wide open and I pinned him against the rocky wall with one swift push. He screamed until I slit his throat with my cause and began to feed. 

I remembered Aela warning me after my first transformation; that feasting on the hearts of mortals would unlock more power in the transformation and even prolong it. What she failed to mention, however, was just how GOOD it felt. It was like an itch was finally being properly scratched, and although it would continue to linger afterwards. 

I dropped the fresh corpse I had made and proceeded further into the cave; I didn’t look back but I could hear Arissa and Barbas following behind me…at a distance. I didn’t complain though; every kill made it more difficult to stay focused. 

Most of the thralls and vampires I ran into weren’t difficult to deal with in the form I was in, but they certainly tried. I was a big target, which was good because it meant most, if not all, of the threat was directed towards me. I ripped everyone who got in my way limb from limb fairly literally; whatever I didn’t decide to feed from, anyways. The more I ate, the stronger and faster I got. I had no problem carving a path forward leaving blood from the living and ash from the dead in my wake. 

The deeper I got into the strange cave, the heavier resistance got. I soon began to run into more vampires than thralls, and some even knew how to properly fight a werewolf. One vampire managed to keep me at bay with some lightning magic, which was one thing I actually found quite painful. In my blood haze, however, most of the pain could be ignored as I closed in and ripped his throat out with my jaws. Tasting vampires was always a weird sensation; they always tasted like old, cold meat. 

Moving forward, I eventually encountered a frostbite spider amongst another vampires and thralls. Taking care of the spider was easy, as I was able to knock it onto its back and rip out its insides with my claws. The thralls and vampires threatened to surround me, but a loud howl had apparently been terrifying enough to cause them to flee. 

I hunted them down like the prey they were. I then proceeded to follow some sort of stream that went further into the cave. I had a feeling I was getting close. 

I slowly moved into a more open area and snarled at the group of vampires and other prey that had gathered; specifically five vampires and two brainwashed brigands. I roared loudly, which had done its usual job of startling most of my foes, if not causing them to break rank and flee, except for one that I opted to ignore. I descended from above right into the fray and soon got to work. There was a clash of swords, magic, and sharp claws that was usually followed by screams of pain and loud growling. 

I bashed one vampire away with a closed fist, sending him crashing into the upper walkway. If Arissa and Barbas had followed me, I figured a broken vampire wouldn’t be too much to deal with. Another two vampires engaged me at once, but I merely pushed one away so that I could pin another one down and tear him to shreds with razor-sharp claws. The one I had pushed away tried to re-engage me, but a few quick slashes took care of him as well. Suddenly, I could feel my fur stand up on end and hear a distinct crackling in the air; lightning. I turned just in time to receive a large bolt of electricity to my chest, sending me flying back off my feet into some stone with a loud yelp. 

It was a familiar sensation. 

My arms felt like wet noodles as I tried to stand. I looked at my attacker and, as if the gods themselves had a sense of humor, discovered my attacker was a high-elf vampire. He looked ugly and misshapen, and yet very old and powerful. He wasn’t phased by me at all; he just looked really mad. 

“How dare you!” he shouted, stepping a little bit closer and casting another lightning spell at me. Talos, those ones REALLY hurt. 

“This was my brood you attacked, you mutt. We just came here to be cured!” he continued, hitting me with the spell a third time. 

By this time, my vision was getting all blurry and my body refused to move. Even so, I still managed to snarl as I stared him down, but he didn’t seem to impressed. His magicka must have been getting low, because he began to use a weaker lightning spell to keep me supressed. A constant stream of electricity was sapping at my body, and I was too weak now to resist it. My muscles clenched in response to the shock and when he finally eased, I fell to my knees and coughed up some blood. 

“Now I’ll send you to my children, you monster…” he concluded as he unsheathed his sword and poised it in prime stabbing position. All I could do was growl up at him in defiance. When he pulled back his sword in preparation to strike, it seemed like it was all over for me. I would be slain like a beast and I’d get to spend an eternity hanging with Hircine in his hunting grounds. Not the ideal vacation for me, but I almost accepted it as just as the master vampire lunged forward to attack… 

…and to both of our surprise, found his sword instead being embedded into the matted, grey fur of a hound. 

Yup. My life had been saved by a talking dog. 

Now, if this wasn’t enough of a surprise to the vampire, the two arrows that both struck him in the back had to have been. He lurched forward from the surprise attack, no doubt by Arissa, and hissed as he straightened himself out and turned to face her. Arissa, apparently expecting this guy to go down from the arrows already, fumbled to pull another one from her quiver and pull it back on the bow. Unfortunately for her, the vampire managed to close the distance between rather quick and swatted her weapons away with amazing strength. His palms then glowed red as he began to use his vampiric powers to drain the life from her body in a fit of rage. 

I could see the light leaving Arissa’s eyes as she was quickly being drained, but she had given me just enough time to muster from strength in my body. I lunged forward with all the strength I could give and, before the vampire could turn around, I wrapped both large hands around his head lifted him off the ground. I could feel him struggling and scratching, and with a loud snarl I began to squeeze with all my strength. His screams of pain were muffled in my claws and, after a few seconds, I felt his teeth shatter and his skull collapse from the pressure of my massive strength. I didn’t stop squeezing until I felt his neck detach from his head and his corpse crumbled to the ground. 

Arissa and I both stared at the corpse for…a long time. Long enough for Barbas to walk up to us and I finally felt my blood began to cool. I growled a little from the pain as my body began to shift back into its regular shape. My fur fell from my body into a nice circular pile around me, and next thing I knew I was on my knees again wearing tattered trousers on the cold, hard floor. I looked at Arissa and caught her staring at me, like she couldn’t believe it was me. 

“Arissa…” I began, but she looked away and to be honest, I had no idea what to say. Well, one thing came to mind. “I’m…sorry you had to see that. Are you okay?” 

“I’m…okay,” she said finally, and tried to flash me a weak smile. 

Arissa still didn’t say anything else to me, and I didn’t see any reason to push. I looked around and finally realized that this had to be the shrine Barbas was talking about, because it had a huge statue of whom I imagined was Clavicus Vile himself. It also occurred to me that, at this point, I had no idea what to do next. 

“So, Barbas… What do I do?” I asked the dog beside me. 

“…Oh, yeah, just talk to the statue. He likes that,” Barbas answered after a second 

That made sense, I guess. I walked up to the statue and rubbed my arms for a little extra warmth, as I had no idea where my gear was and didn’t really feel like it was the right time to ask. “Er… Lord Vile, I have a request for you,” I asked once I mustered the courage. 

“By all means, let’s hear it,” a loud, amused voice asked in my head. You’d think after dealing with Barbas it wouldn’t surprise nor unnerve me; it did both. 

“It’s the least I could do, since you already helped me grant one final wish for my last worshipers... They were suffering so from vampirism, and begged me for a cure. Then you came and ended their misery! I couldn't have planned it better myself…” Clavicus continued, and suddenly I had an idea about how the ‘Daedric Lord of Wishes’ conducted his affairs. Needless to say, it left me weary of his business practice. “So, what's your heart's desire? What kind of deal can we strike?" 

It was a soft and, in a way, friendly voice; and I didn’t trust it for a second. 

“I’m, uh…just here to reunite you with Barbas,” I replied, trying to choose my words carefully. I really sucked at this sort of thing. 

Clavicus definitely did not like that suggestion. 

"Ugh. That insufferable pup? Forget it. Request denied. No deal. I'm glad to be rid of him. Even if it does mean I'm stuck in this pitiful shrine, in the back end of... nowhere…” Clavicus trailed off, as if reconsidering his stance. I certainly didn’t blame him for doing so, and after a few seconds he spoke again, “Well... perhaps there is a way he could earn his place back at my side. Maybe. But no promises." 

“What’s your offer?” I asked, starting to sound a little more confident. 

“There’s an axe,” replied Clavicus, “An incredibly powerful axe. Powerful enough for me to have…quite a bit of fun, indeed. If you bring it to me, I’ll grant you my boon. No strings attached. No messy surprises. At least, not for you. As I recall, it’s resting in Rimerock Burrow. Barbas can lead you right to it. Little mutt might even earn his place back at my side…” 

I waited for a bit longer, but the statue had gone completely silent. Again, it was just me, Arissa, and Barbas…and a large pile of bodies and vampire dust. Now that the tension was down and the cold really begun to seep into my body, I figured it was finally time to pop the question. 

“Uh, Arissa… Where’s my stuff?” I asked her. 

Arissa, seeming to recover from the vampire attack after drinking a couple potions she had on hand, seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “Oh… Uh… I’m pretty sure Barbas and I left it nice and hidden…near the entrance…” she finally answered. 

“Oh… Great…” I said under my breath. 

“Don’t worry, I promise I didn’t take anything you’d miss,” Arissa replied and managed to smile. 

You wouldn’t think something as simple as a smile would raise my spirits, but when you turn into a werewolf and your friend thinks you’re a huge monster and you feel super guilty about putting her through that…a genuine smile was better than any potion. 

“Heh… In that case, let’s not waste any time,” I said as I began to walk back. 

“Erik?” Arissa asked suddenly, not following just yet. 

I turned and looked back at her, worried for a moment of what she was going to say. “Yeah?” 

“What happened just now… The werewolf thing… You’re going to have to tell me that story one day,” she continued, winking at me and walking past me. 

“I will… Soon, I promise,” I said and walked along side her. 

“You two are going to make me gag,” Barbas chimed in suddenly, his tail wagging. 

“Shut up, mutt.” Arissa and I both retorted in unison. 

We all walked back through the caves, trading petty insults and jokes. I found my gear all stashed in a chest when we were about half way through, and I was thankful to be armored up again with a good sword strapped to my belt. It wasn’t much longer before we left the cave behind us, and began our journey west towards Rimerock Burrow. 

We had no way of knowing what was going to happen when we got there.


	10. Axes to Grind

“At least the weather’s gotten nicer,” Arissa said cheerfully. 

I nodded in agreement as we relaxed in our little spot on a caravan wagon. She was right, of course; the weather towards the western end of Skyrim was certainly much better than what you’d find at the base of a frozen mountain. Barbas barked in agreement as well, rather than speak; I told him we didn’t want to disturb any of the caravan merchants. 

“I almost feel bad,” Arissa commented and began to pet Barbas’ head, “Basically keeping him muzzled like this.” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to explain the origins behind a talking dog to any of these people. We were pretty lucky for the free ride,” I replied, not exactly sharing her sympathy. Truth be told, I was glad for the relative peace and quiet. 

“I guess you’re right. It sure was nice of them to give us a ride…for some protection,” Arissa agreed, prompting a little whine from Barbas. A few ear scratches from her seemed to clear up the situation, though. Then she looked at me and flashed me her signature, evil smirk. “So… How often do you think they check their inventory?” 

I sighed in disappointment, but couldn’t help but smile too. “Why? You thinking of buying some stuff?” 

“Is it still buying if you don’t pay for it?” 

“Nope.” 

“Not exactly, then.” 

I noticed the slight giggle and knew she was at least partially joking, but I was willing to bet a hundred septims that she wouldn’t have a problem stealing if I didn’t either. I sometimes forgot Arissa was thief through and through, but she never hid it from me. We had an understanding, at least; sometimes, when we entered a new city and were there overnight, she’d go out for a bit and come back with a few fancy new pieces of jewelry. Considering sometimes I would have to go into the woods and hunt as a giant wolf…well, I’d say we were kind of even. 

“Fine…but nothing too fancy,” I said after she began to pout. 

Arissa gave me a victorious grin, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Those damn smiles were too hard to resist. When the caravan stopped for the night, Arissa and I went out for a ‘walk’ separately to patrol the area. While she had her fun, Barbas and I found a nice place to rest until Arissa was done. 

“So, Barbas… What’s the story behind this axe Clavicus wants?” I asked him. 

"One of Clavicus's little jests,” Barbas explained, “A wizard named Sebastian Lort had a daughter who worshiped Hircine. When the daughter became a werewolf it drove Sebastian over the edge. He couldn't stand to see his little girl take on such a bestial form. The wizard wished for the ability to end his daughter's curse…”   
“I couldn’t possibly see how that could go wrong…” I said sarcastically, remembering how Clavicus used me to grant the vampire’s their ‘wish’ for them, “So what did he do?” 

“Clavicus gave him an axe." 

“…Oh,” I replied after I understood the meaning. “I take it he won’t be very happy to see you?” 

“Not in the least.” 

“Fantastic,” I replied with a sigh. 

I was getting sick of killing people on other people’s orders…or for their amusement; it was just putting more salt a continuously reopened wound. We both sat there in silence for a while before Arissa finally returned. The satisfied smirk she was wearing told me everything had gone well on her end. 

“Get anything neat?” I asked. 

“Oh, you’ll see…” Arissa sang. Although she had no problems fully admitting the trouble she’d get into, she never was forthcoming about the details. 

The three of us headed back to our caravan wagon and slept through the night. 

The next day, the caravan made it to Dragon’s Bridge, which was also where Arissa and I decided we were better off going the rest of the way on foot. Arissa and Barbas went ahead while I discussed our payment with the caravan owner. I explained to him that since everything had gone smoothly, we were happy to accept the free ride as payment. Although truly, I just hoped to make up for whatever it was that Arissa stole. I caught up to my companions shortly after. 

While Arissa and I walked behind Barbas, whom had insisted that he take lead because I knew the easy way to Rimerock Burrow, I told Arissa the story about the axe that Barbas had told me the night before. She seemed to consider it carefully. 

“So, what do you think?” I asked her. 

“I think when it comes down to it, we’ll probably have to kill him,” she replied with a shrug. 

“Heh… We can try talking to him first, if he attacks us I guess it’ll be business in Skyrim as usual.” 

Once again, the weather had taken a turn for the worse; naturally Rimerock Burrow was on the side of some mountain, so naturally it got terribly cold as we began to ascend it. Arissa was once again clutching a layer of furs to her and looking miserable as ever. I was just happy the walk wasn’t too long, because Barbas only got lost a few times. Believe me, it was a far more impressive feat considering how many times we got lost trying to find Haemar’s Shame. After taking a narrow path along the side of the mountain, which became a little difficult for a while considering the snow had covered most of it, we finally found ourselves standing a little off to the side of a cave. 

“This is it. See! I told you I’d find it,” Barbas barked happily. 

“You don’t remember accidentally leading us down to the base?” Arissa snapped back in reply, “We had to look up at this cave from all the way down there!” 

“Well, yeah, but we’re here now!” Barbas retorted, sounding a little offended. 

“Alright you two. What’s our game plan?” I asked, hoping to get us back on track. 

“Maybe I can sneak in and just steal the damn thing. Did you forget my speciality?” Arissa said smugly. 

“Oh? You’re telling me it isn’t complaining about the weather?” I added in quickly. 

That earned me a punch in the arm. I gave her my best, exaggerated ‘Ow’ face; she seemed satisfied with it. 

“Let’s not risk it, anyways. These wizards are usually be pretty tricky. Especially the crazy ones…” I said, finally. “Let’s go in together.” 

So that’s exactly what we did. It all seemed to go well…for the first few minutes. The cave wasn’t very big, but it had two levels and we started on the bottom one. The lack of size made it very hard to sneak around, so when we encountered the flame atronach, it found us right away. Barbas barked and attacked it, and Arissa and I followed suit as I drew my sword and she drew her bow. 

So much for that approach. 

Usually dealing with atronachs is kind of difficult, particularly flame ones. It’s hard to get a decent strike in when it’s constantly flinging fire balls at you. Fortunately, it seemed pretty intent on attacking Barbas, who was basically immune to its flames. One good swing from my sword took its head clean off its shoulders. When it was dead, I watched Barbas jumped back, which reminded me to do the same, before the creature’s body exploded in a glorious blaze. 

“What is the meaning of this!?” A robed man, who I presumed was Sebastian Lort, demanded from on the upper level. 

We all looked up at him and, for a moment, we were locked in an incredibly awkward staring contest. It didn’t last long, luckily, before Barbas broke the silence with a bark and Lort responded to this action by conjuring another flame atronach to deal with us. We skirmished for a bit, but it wasn’t too much of a challenge for Barbas and I to kill the atronach and Arissa put a couple arrows into Lort. He began to use some Destruction Magic, but before he could do much I ran my sword through his gut. 

“That takes care of that…” I said to myself whilst cleaning the blood off my sword. 

“Damn mages… I think some of my furs got burned…” Arissa complained, inspecting her obviously singed fur cloak. 

We did our typical post-cave/dungeon clear up; I found the axe on one of those weird ancient nord table things or, in other words, found the one thing we had actually came for while Arissa searched the former resident’s living space in search of other valuables. She managed to find some sort of enchanted sword, at least, so we could both make off with a hundred extra septims each. 

Once we were finished in Rimerock Burrow, we left and began our journey back. It was surprisingly easier than it had been when we were walking to our destination instead of from, but I think we could chalk that one up to the fact that we were walking downhill for a long time…and the weather was getting way nicer. Arissa became far less concerned with her burned furs and, once we made it to Dragon’s Bridge, stayed at the inn there for the night. 

We managed to make it back to Clavicus’s shrine by the following evening. We still had to walk through the cave system again, and not much had changed; there were still corpses scattered about and all the other signs of our first time through. At least vampire bodies tended to dissolve into dust; I collected some while we went through in case an alchemist found them to be valuable. When we stood in front of Clavicus’s shrine, for a few seconds I was unsure of what to do. So I did the first thing that came into my mind and held the axe towards the large statue. 

“Er… Lord Vile, we’ve got your axe,” I spoke. 

“Ah, so you’ve got the axe!” Clavicus suddenly chirped in my head, “And my dog. Splendid.” 

“Right, so, fulfill your end of the bargain.” I demanded. 

It was weird demanding things of a Daedric Lord. I imagined he was used to it, being the Lord of Wishes, and all that sort of nonsense, but I wasn’t in any mood to dance around with words. Clavicus, however, didn’t share my impatience. 

“Excellent work. A hero and his faithful companion, retrieving the ancient artifact for the prince,” Clavicus continued, “It’s almost…storybook.” 

Then there was a pause, and even I got a really bad feeling when someone paused in the middle of a deal. It usually meant things were about to get needlessly complicated; I mentally braced myself. 

“Ah, but seems a shame to just give a weapon like that away, doesn’t it?” asked Clavicus, trying to sound sympathetic. “I suppose I could be persuaded to let you keep it…” 

Wait for it. 

“….But only if you use the axe to kill Barbas,” Clavicus concluded, “Simple as that.” 

And there it was; the catch. 

“No,” I said flatly, almost immediately after Clavicus had suggested it. I felt both Arissa and Barbas watching me closely, then to Clavicus, and then back to me. I didn’t blame them; I was basically doing the equivalent of telling this Daedric Lord to ‘piss off’ with his offer. “Take the axe and take back Barbas!” 

Although Clavicus Vile didn’t have a face other than a statue, I could feel the disappointment radiating from him. 

“Hrmph. You’re fun at all…” he finally answered, “Guess I’ll have to make my own fun elsewhere. And with the pup back, I’ll be restored to my full power. There’s a whole world just waiting for me!” 

I felt relieved that Clavicus wasn’t mad; it had occurred to me that maybe pissing off an immortal being with all of its power suddenly being restored wasn’t the best plan. “Right… Good luck with that?” I asked sort of quietly. I wasn’t sure what else I could add to the situation. 

“I knew I could trust you,” Barbas barked happily. He began to bark and run around playfully with Arissa, who did her best not to get too much smelly fur on her. She mostly failed. 

“Yeah, yeah…” Clavicus began, apparently annoyed that Barbas had ‘won’ by not being killed. “Dog gets master, master gets cosmic axe, everyone’s happy. Just get over here, mutt.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he sees the light. I trusted you, now you trust me,” Barbas assured us, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about. 

Suddenly, a light engulfed Barbas and, for a few moments, he was gone. Then, the light reappeared next to Clavicus’ statue and when it vanished, there was a larger than life statue of Barbas beside his master. It came with the smell of Barbas and everything. 

“Ah, that feels so much better!” Clavicus announced, sounding like someone that had just stretched after a long nap. “You forget how nice supreme power feels until you’ve been stuck in a cave for a few years.” 

It made me wonder again why he wanted to be rid of Barbas so bad. 

“It’s a shame you wished for something so dull as me taking back the mutt” Clavicus said, and suddenly I felt a great power fully focusing on me. “Quite the lack of imagination on your part.” 

That didn’t sound good. 

“A lack of ambition like that really ought to be punished. Perhaps by turning you into a worm, or a few decades of…” Clavicus continued. 

That sounded way worse; suddenly I understood what Barbas was talking about. There was a long silence and I looked towards Arissa, who was also staring at me while frozen in place. I just hoped she wouldn’t be hurt because I decided to act like an ass to a Daedric Lord. 

“…Oh fine! Have my boon and be done with it. I’ve got your interesting deals to make anyways…” Clavicus concluded and I swear I heard something akin to a pout. Talos, I had a sinking feeling owed my life to a dog… 

I horned helmet suddenly fell into my signs which, quite frankly, startled the crap out of me. The statue went silent, and Arissa and I were just left in stunned silence. I couldn’t believe we had gotten out of that encounter with all of our pieces intact. 

“That…went well, I think,” Arissa finally said. 

“Yeah… Now we got a funny-looking helmet for our troubles,” I replied, making Arissa giggle. “I think I’m done dealing with Daedric Lords for a while…” 

“Don’t jinx yourself. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” 

We were just about to go back when we noticed a light shining through behind the statue. We checked it out and, sure enough, there was a shortcut out of the shrine and, more importantly, there was a huge chest behind the door. I knelt in front of it whilst Arissa looked over my shoulder in anticipation. I opened the container and heard Arissa audibly gasp as he looked at what was inside: enchanted pieces of armor and weapons, jewelry, gold, and lastly, a huge white sphere. 

“What in Oblivion is that?” Arissa asked, pointing to the sphere. 

“I got no idea,” I replied, picking it out of the chest. It was warm to the touch. “It looks like some kind of” 

“A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON,” An incredibly loud voice rang in our ears. 

Damn it all.


	11. Family

“Will you stop playing with that?” 

“What? I’m just looking at it,” I replied a little more defensively than I had tried to. 

Arissa merely sighed and rolled her eyes, but it didn’t bother me in the least. Not when I had a fancy sword like Dawnbreaker to check out. Not only did the sword look good, but it had a bunch of useful enchantments that I really appreciated. Burns people and causes undead to explode? How could anyone not appreciate that!? I gave it one last longing look before I slipped the blade back into its sheath. 

“Just don’t forget where you got it from,” Arissa said, sounding more than a little annoyed. 

“Meridia didn’t seem too bad…for a Daedra…” I replied. 

“Well, I suppose watching her drop you from the sky was worth it, in the end…” Arissa observed and wore her classic smug grin. 

“Twice…” I reminder her; just remembering the events made my stomach turn upside down. 

We were on the road from Meridia’s Shrine on our way to Markarth, where we figured we could hire a carriage to take is back east. Of course, as it always seemed to go with me and Arissa, it wouldn’t go quite as smoothly as we planned. We made it to Markarth in one piece alright, but when we got there things got pretty crazy fast. 

The day seemed to be going like any other: the sun was shining, the market place was booming, and Arissa and had arrived just in time to see all go to hell. There was a woman I had noticed standing by herself, looking at a bunch of meats from one man’s stall. She seemed to just be going about her own business, when a man approached her from behind. I noticed him too; I heard sound of a dagger being unsheathed and had turned in its direction. I noticed him grab the woman and it seemed like everything suddenly went into slow motion. I unsheathed Dawnbreaker and began to step forward, but every step was an eternity and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. Arissa noticed what was about to happen as well and screamed. It had sped everything back up to regular speed. 

“For the Foresworn!” The man called out and began to stab the woman multiple times in the back. She screamed first in shock and then in agony as the man used her back like a pin cushion. The people in the market place began to scatter in panic, and the guards became aware of the situation and drew their weapons. The attacker, finished with his assault, dropped his victim’s corpse to the ground and turned to face me. 

The sound of metal slashing rang twice in the air as I parried the first lunge with his dagger and knocked it away with a swift slash of my own. Moving in close, I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him towards Dawnbreaker’s tip as I stabbed him in the chest. I had the decency to make sure the death was going to be relatively quick…but not instant. I figured a few seconds of suffering were well in order. 

“I die for my people” I heard him breath out as he died. 

At this point, the guards had swarmed into the markets and I backed away from the scene to let them do their job. I nearly tripped over a key while stepping back, so I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket before anyone noticed. I walked back to Arissa, who had regained most of her composure, but still looked a little shake. 

“I-I can’t believe that just happened,” she said, looking at me, “He just walked up and killed her out of nowhere…” 

“I know… What’s going on here?” I asked. 

If things weren’t confusing enough before, I could hear the guards assuring people that there wasn’t, in fact, any Foresworn threat. Considering what I had heard the man say during his fit of murder, I found that very unlikely. 

“Gods. A woman attacked in the middle of the street.” 

Arissa and I both turned around to see a nord man looking between us and the body on the ground. He was shaking his head at the result of the murder before he turned to face me instead. 

“Are you alright? Did you see what happened?” he asked and I noted the desperateness in his voice. 

“Yeah. He attacked her…and then he tried to attack me,” I replied. 

“I’m so sorry,” the man said sympathetically, “I hope the Eight give you more peace in the future.” 

“Doubtful,” I sighed, “But the Nine always seem to have it out for me…” 

The man looked at me nervously, like I had just threatened to kidnap one of the Jarl’s children or something. Suddenly, he took out a piece of paper and wrote in its quickly and then dropped it by his feet. He finished off the crazy act by picking it up and giving it to me. Now I was definitely confused. 

“Oh, I think you dropped this. Some kind of note. Looks important,” he explained while handing me the note. 

“What? What’s going on?” I asked. 

“Do you know something about the attack?” Arissa asked as well. 

“Huh? No, I was just getting some fresh air. Had one too many pints at the Silver-Blood Inn,” he explained, his acting wasn’t really fooling anyone with half their senses, but we finally began to understand the situation. 

The man walked off, and Arissa and I watched him go deeper into the city. With a swiftness that I forgot she possessed, Arissa snatched the folded note from my hands and began to walk into a nearby alley. 

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” she said impatiently and began to read the note, as did I. 

“Meet me in the Shrine of Talos,” I read aloud. 

“Looks like our new friend knows more than nothing…” Arissa observed. 

We wasted no time following the man’s original path. It was a bit of a chore tracking down the Shrine of Talos, namely because it was tucked away out of view. When we found the shrine, we entered and found the man from before waiting for us inside. 

“I’m sorry to drag you into Markarth’s problems, but after that attack in the market, I’m running out of time,” he explained nervously, “You two are outsiders. You’re dangerous-looking. You’ll do.” 

“Slow down there, friend,” Arissa replied, “First, who are you? And second, what’s going on here? What’re you talking about?” 

“You want answers? Well so do I. And so does everyone else in this city,” he retorted angrily, before regaining a little more composure, “My name is Eltrys. And what I know is that a man goes crazy in the market. Everyone knows he’s a foresworn agent. Guards do nothing. Nothing but clean up the mess.” 

“Let me guess, you want us to find out why,” I concluded with a sigh. There was always something someone wanted. 

“This has been going on for years and all I’ve been able to find is murder and blood. I need help. Please.” Eltrys continued, “Please. You find out why that woman was murdered, who’s behind Weylin and the Foresworn, and I’ll pay you for any information you bring me.” 

Arissa and I stood there for a moment, taking it all in. We looked at each other and I had a feeling we had both came to the same conclusion; it seemed like we were doomed to get involved in things we had no right in involving ourselves in. 

“Alright, Eltrys… We’ll help you. We’re going to need some more information before we can start, though,” Arissa explained, “First off, who was the woman that was…attacked.” 

“Her name was Margaret,” Eltrys recalled, “She wasn’t from Markarth. The air about her screamed ‘outsider’. Visitors to the city usually stay at the Silver-Blood Inn.” 

“A good place to start,” I added in, and fumbled around with the key in my pocket. I had to wonder… 

“And Weylin? I’m guessing he’s the man that attacked us,” Arissa asked and crossed her arms, “Where does he live?” 

“He was one of the smelter workers. I used to have a job down there myself, casting silver ingots,” Eltrys answered, “I never knew much about Weylin, except that he lived in the Warrens, like all the other workers.” 

Arissa and I paused again. I was processing all this new information; we had plenty of clues to go on, but the real question was where to begin. Well, that was my question, anyways. Arissa, on the other hand, seemed to have one of her own. 

“Eltrys… You’ve looked pretty hard into these murders,” Arissa observed. 

“Yes,” Eltrys sighed, “It all started when I was a boy. My father owned one of the mines. Rare for someone who wasn’t a Nord.” 

His voice suddenly went low. 

“He was killed,” he continued, “Guards said it was just a madman, but everyone knew the murderer was a member of the Foresworn.” 

“That’s horrible,” Arissa said flatly, looking away. Something about what Eltrys said seemed to resonate with her. 

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to find out why ever since. Gotten nowhere so far, and then I got married. Have a child of my own on the way,” he explained, smiling a little at the last part. 

“You sure you want to keep digging?” I asked, “This is dangerous stuff. And you have a lot to live for.” 

Eltrys seemed to consider my words for a moment, but then shook his head. “I swore I was going to just give up, for my child’s sake, but it’s like my father’s ghost is haunting me. Asking me ‘why’?” 

“This is probably the last thing he wanted for you…” Arissa murmured, and for a moment I wondered if it was Eltrys she was referring to. 

With the facts all laid out in front of us, I knew there was no way I could walk away now. 

“Alright then, Eltrys, we’re going to help you. We’ll start first thing in the morning,” I assured him. 

Considering the Silver-Blood Inn was where Margaret had last stayed, and that was where outsiders like us were probably going to stay, it was a safe bet where we would be starting our investigation. 

The Silver-Blood Inn was, all in all, a decent enough establishment. It didn’t have that warm and welcoming feeling that the Bannered Mare in Whiterun had, but a few bottles of mean would sort that out quick. We just had to wait for the Inn keeper and his wife to stop bickering first. Arissa and I quickly paid for our room; two single beds, as per the usual, and got started on the drinking after we found a small table for two people. Now, I usually always went through a few bottles of mead just to get through the night, and Arissa would only have one or two at the most when she was feeling it. This time, however, the woman was going through mead fast enough to make even Farkas’ jaw drop. It didn’t take long, even in my buzzed state, before I realized she meant to get drunk as fast as possible. 

“Hey… You okay…?” I asked. 

“…What? Erik, I’m fine…” Arissa tried to assure me while she poured another bottle into a mug. 

“You’re hitting the mead pretty hard tonight…” I observed, “You’ve been acting kinda funny since we talked to Eltrys.” 

“Okay, well, maybe I’m not fine…” Arissa confessed, “But I also don’t want to talk about it. I just want to get really, really drunk…”   
“Because…” I continued, ignoring the disapproving expression on her face, “Since he mentioned his dad…” 

“Erik, please…” 

There it was, the pain in her voice. I knew something had happened to her; something had hurt her bad enough to leave painful emotional scars. Something to do with her family…Gods, I knew that feeling well. 

“…You know, I never did tell you what happened after I got back from the war…” I said after a long silence, “I had a family here in Skyrim. Pretty well off…my father was a former soldier too. Pretty respected. Got himself some land just outside of Falkreath to raise a family once he retired. Just a short walk from Lake Ilinalta…” 

Arissa had taken a break from her drinking and swayed just a little bit in her chair while listening to me tell my story with interest. I took it as my cue to continue. 

“But when the war was said and done, I guess he wasn’t any happier than I was with some elves telling people which gods they could or couldn’t worship…among other things. The old fool wouldn’t ever back down from anything… That was probably what got him…killed,” I continued, and Arissa’s ears perked up for a moment and she stared down into her mug. 

“What happened?” she asked quietly. 

“Brigands, the Jarl told me. Said a whole party attacked during the night. My parents fought them off best they could, but it was a raid. They didn’t stand a chance…” I answered, my voice going low. “According to the Jarl, my father owed the hold some serious coin for the ownership of the property we lived on. My father had made an arrangement with the old Jarl for some deed…but the new Jarl took our land anyways. I don’t think my parents were buried before he had my home burned down…” 

“But why?” 

“I didn’t think much of it at the time, but while the old Jarl was a more traditional and…honorable man, the new one was young and ambitious. I think he was trying to impress someone…someone who wanted my parents silenced…” 

“Don’t you want vengeance?” Arissa asked suddenly. “On the people who hurt you? On that Jarl? Who was he?” 

The question took me by surprise, and when I looked back at her I saw the flare of anger in those green eyes. A deeply personal anger. Despite her furious gaze, however, I smiled, which seemed to take her by surprise in turn. 

“We met him, actually. The young Jarl of Falkreath,” I explained, “Siddgier.” 

“Really?” 

“Mhm… I don’t think he recognized who I was. Good thing we never met face to face… One day he’ll get what’s coming to him. I know he will…” I said before looking Arissa straight in the eyes, “So don’t think I don’t understand unfinished business.” 

We both sat there in silence for a while, and even I began to drink a lot more alcohol than I had planned on doing that night. I hadn’t talked about what happened to me to anyone else before, and talking about it all reminded how…deep…the wound was. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed; I just became aware of when we had both finished our drinks and would wave down someone to deliver more. 

“When I was young…the Thalmor arrested my family, stole my land, and destroyed my life,” Arissa said, finally breaking the silence. I could hear the strain on her voice to continue, but she did so regardless. “There was a man that helped them ruin my family. He’s still hiding out here in Skyrim. Holed up somewhere like the little skeever he is.” 

“Do you know where he is?” I asked. 

She nodded slowly in response. 

“I…I got word from a friend just the other day,” she answered, “I have to find him before the Thalmor do.” 

“So what’s the plan?” 

You know the look someone gives you when you show up to their birthday party after no one else did and you’re offering them a large bottle of booze? That was pretty much the look Arissa gave me. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel really good make someone feel that way. 

“He’s a Nord man with a blue marking on his face,” Arissa described, “According to this note my friend gave me, he was last seen in Haafingar.” 

“That’s not far from here,” I said and nodded. I placed my hand on her shoulder and squeezed it a little and she looked thankful for the comfort. “As soon as we’re done here, we’ll go take care of it.” 

“Yeah… Erik?” she responded with a warm smile, “Thank you…” 

“That’s what friends do,” I grinned at her, “Until then, why don’t we focus tonight on getting as drunk as possible so we can forget about all this crap for a bit?” 

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Arissa replied with a devilish smirk of her own. 

And so we did just that. By the time Arissa and I were done, I practically had to carry her to our room…with a lot of help from the Inn keeper’s son who, unsurprisingly, worked at his father’s Inn. For once, I think the both of us slept pretty well for the first time in a long time…


	12. Mysteries Can Get You Killed

“Oww… My head…” Arissa groaned, slumped over our table in the inn, “And my…everything else…” 

I had to admit, I wasn’t feeling too great myself. Normally, I could do a night of consuming a decent amount of alcohol without any negative aftereffects in the morning, but last night had been a special occasion of heavy drinking; so this morning was a special kind of hang over. 

“Just eat your eggs…” I sighed. 

Arissa merely groaned again in response and I didn’t blame her. I ate simply because I knew it would make me feel better, not because I felt particularly hungry. Plus, I was pretty sure I had killed most of my taste buds, or the food here was exceptionally bland. I didn’t know which was worse. 

A half hour later we were walking around at least partly functional; enough to start our investigation anyways. We chose this particular inn not because it was supposedly the nicest in the Reach, and certainly not for its food, but because the woman that had been murdered in the streets was last seen staying here. It was as good a place as any to start finding out what was going on. Why had she been targeted in the first place? 

“Did a woman named Margaret stay here?” I asked the Inn Keeper, Kleppr. 

He seemed hesitant to answer for a moment. 

“Margaret? Ah, yes. Rented the nicest room we had for a whole month,” he answered, though seeming to choose his words carefully. “Poor girl. It’s a damn shame what happened to her.” 

I nodded in agreement and sat back in my chair, Kleppr took it as his cue to go tend to the other customers. I recalled there being a nice-looking door next to the room Arissa and I had rented; I was willing to bet a lot of septims that was Margaret’s. I moved away from the bar and sat back with Arissa at her table, who looked to be feeling a little better. At least her appetite had returned as she was looked content taking a bite out of some roasted pheasant. 

“Margaret had a room here, alright. Nice one by the sound of it. Paid rent for a whole month,” I explained as I took a bite out of some cooked beef. 

“Mmm… Sounds like she was planning to stay a while, then. But not permanently. I wonder what she was doing here…” Arissa wondered. 

“I guess we better find out,” I said cheekily and held out the key in my pocket, “Found this inn key near her body. I’m willing to bet it’s for her room.” 

Arissa nodded in conclusion; we had our plan. We casually walked back towards our room, which was conveniently close to Margaret’s, with the goal of not drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves. Sometimes the key to subtlety was not looking like you were doing anything wrong. I stuck the end of the key into Margaret’s door and, sure enough, it turned without any issue. The both of us slipped into her room without any issue. 

“You know, this room doesn’t look much nicer than ours,” Arissa observed. 

She had a point, of course. The room’s layout was almost the exact same as ours, even just a little smaller because it only had one bed. Of course, I didn’t really care about an old inn keeper’s scams. I was much more concerned with looking around for any clues we could use. Sure enough, my efforts bore fruit as I found a relatively nice-looking journal in one of the desk drawers. 

“Here we go…” I said, opening the small book and turning the pages, “Looks like her journal.” 

It sort of felt like it was in bad taste to read the recently deceased’s journal, but given the circumstances I didn’t let it bother me. I tried skimming the pages until something looked relevant; I didn’t need to know this girl’s personal life any more than necessary. Finally, a page jumped out at me. 

“Looks like our girl was an imperial spy,” I explained after reading a couple pages, “She wanted the deed to Cidhna Mine and was meeting a ‘Thonar Silver-Blood’ about it. Seems like he made her pretty paranoid.” 

“Thonar Silver-Blood? That name’s a pretty big deal here,” Arissa replied with a furrowed brow. 

“I recall Kleppr telling me last night that the Silver-Bloods have their fingers in most of Markarth. But how is he connected to the Foresworn?” I asked; something wasn’t adding up. 

“Should we go find out?” Arissa asked. 

“Eventually,” I replied, “But first I want to find out more about this Weylin guy. I don’t want to talk to Thonar without more information to go on. We’d be at a pretty big disadvantage.” 

“Right… Eltrys said he lived in the Warrens. We should go there next.” 

“It’s a date.” 

“Shut up.” 

We left the Silver-Blood Inn and made our way through Markarth. With the way people went about their business, you almost wouldn’t believe someone had been murdered in broad daylight right in the middle of a crowded street. From what Eltrys said, however, it sounded like this had been going on in Markarth for a long time. Had these people just become desensitized to that? Talos help them, if that was the case. 

We had to go into the lower, poorer part of the city to get to the Warrens. Inside, I couldn’t help but imagine how horrible it must have been to live there; it was no better than living in a cave. We began to walk in further, despite my better judgement, but we were stopped by a man who seemed to take the role of ‘guard’ for this dump. 

“The Warrens isn’t a place for your type. What are you doing here?” the man said in a tone that screamed unfriendly. 

“I heard a man named Weylin lived down here. Did you know him?” I asked, doing my best to sound polite. 

“Oh yes. I know everyone who sleeps in the Warrens. I’m kind of the one who passes the keys around here.” He replied, “Though… I guess someone else will be taking his room, now.” 

Damn. I almost wish I had the same luck with Weylin’s key as I had with Margaret’s. 

“That’s good. I need the key to Weylin’s room.” 

The man frowned at me and I knew right away this wasn’t going to be easy. 

“Sorry, but you don’t exactly belong here,” the man replied defiantly. 

“Why not?” I retorted, starting to sound a little impatient, “The dead don’t need our protection anymore.” 

He did not like that one bit. 

“I said ‘no’, and I meant it. Now go, before I call the guards,” he shot back. 

I growled and clenched my hands into fists, but I felt Arissa touch my shoulder and give me a look that calmed me down. 

“You really think the city guards are going to cover for you? All I have to do is scream something along the lines of ‘Foresworn’ and ‘that man tried to kill me’, and the guards will throw your sorry hide right into Cidhna Mine. And then we’ll break into Weylin’s room anyways,” Arissa threatened, “So save us all a lot of trouble and just give us the damn key! Or I swear by the gods I’ll pick the damn thing myself!” 

Now all I felt was sympathy for the man. 

“Now don’t get all upset,” the man growled and grabbed a key from his pocket, “Here. Take it.” 

Arissa gave the man a very venomous smirk and we walked past him to find Weylin’s room, which the man had been nice enough to point out to us. Inside was basically just dirt for a floor and loose pieces of stone for furniture, complete with a simple bed roll; I had no envy for these people. There was a chest off to the side which, let’s face it, was the most valuable-looking thing in the room. Arissa opened it up and, sure enough, there was a note inside. 

“You have been chosen to strike fear into the heart of the Nords. Go to the market tomorrow. You will know what to do,” Arissa read aloud, “It’s signed by someone called ‘N’. No idea who that could be.” 

“Me neither,” I replied, “Looks like this trail is pretty cold. We’d better just go see Thonar.” 

We exited the Warrens, but it seemed our cold trail had heated itself up. A large Breton was waiting for us outside, and he did not look happy when he stared at us. 

“Can I help you, friend?” I asked. I knew it was a pointless effort, but I tried any way; I knew the look of someone who wanted to fight. 

“You’ve been digging around where you don’t belong,” the man said in that classic, threatening tone. 

“I’ve been getting that a lot today, actually,” I retorted, prompting a quiet giggle from Arissa. 

The Breton seemed less than pleased with the joke. “It’s time you learned a lesson.” 

If there was one thing being in the army had taught me, it was that you should always be ready for a fight. I learned that lesson well, I figured, because when that Breton charged I reacted like I had seen it coming a mile away. He closed in quick and I saw his fist aimed towards my face, but I leaned back away from it and caught his over-extended wrist. A quick twist of his arm behind his caused him to grunt in pain and I pushed him into the wall with all the strength I could muster. He smashed into it hard and, by the time he turned, I had pulled Dawnbreaker from its sheath and Arissa had an arrow trained at his crotch. 

“Hey, no fair!” he yelled out. 

“What? You attacked us first, remember? Now get talking before Arissa gets tired of keeping that bow drawn.” 

The man realized where Arissa was aiming and immediately froze on the spot, not wanting to risk losing anything he could regret. He held up his hands in surrender. 

“Wait! I was sent by Nepos the Nose. The old man hands out the orders. He told me to make sure you didn't get in the way. That's all I know, I swear!" he pleased. I actually felt inclined to believe him, only because I was fairly certain our intimidation tactic had been very successful. 

“Where is this Nepos now?” Arissa demanded. 

“He lives high up in Markarth. Close to the Silver-Blood’s estate! Please, that’s really all I know!” 

Well, that was convenient. 

“Is Nepos behind the Foresworn?” I asked impatiently. 

“Nepos is in charge. That’s really all I know!” the Breton repeated. 

“Fine… Get out of here! If I see you in this city again, Talos as my witness, I will send you to the guards myself!” I promised. 

The man got the message loud and clear. When Arissa loosened the arrow on her bow just a little bit, he fled as fast as he could. Now Arissa and I were faced with a real dilemma; who did we talk to first? We had two perfectly viable suspects to the Foresworn, but how were they related? It couldn’t be a coincidence that our two leads had led to the both of them. 

“Nepos, or Thonar?” I asked Arissa. 

“Hmm… Nepos does seem to be more obviously connected to the Foresworn… I don’t want to piss off a rich family like the Silver-Blood’s. At least, not when I’m showing my face to them,” Arissa suggested and I saw the logic in her words. 

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go show Eltrys what we’ve found,” I said and Arissa nodded in agreement. 

Eltrys was still standing around the Shrine of Talos when we returned; I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or praying. I suppose it didn’t really matter in the long run. 

“Ah, you’ve returned. Found anything useful?” Eltrys asked, sounding a little excited. 

“Yeah,” I replied, showing him Margaret’s journal, “The woman who was attacked yesterday was investigating Thonar Silver-Blood.” 

“So the clues point to the Treasury House, then. That makes sense. Thonar is involved in every facet of the city,” Eltrys concluded in agreement. 

“That’s not all,” Arissa chimed in, not wanting to be upstaged, “We also found out Weylin got his orders from Nepos.” 

Eltrys looked shocked at that one. Arissa grinned at me in smug victory, as if we had been competing to really impress Eltrys and she had won. 

“Nepos the Nose? He’s been in Markarth forever. And he’s well respected among the natives of the Reach…” Eltrys seemed to consider our information for a moment, but then he looked us as if we had begun to life some great weight from his shoulders. “I can’t believe you guys managed to figure all this out! I mean, I spent years since my dad died… Truly, thank you.” 

He held out a large bag and I could tell it was full of gold. 

“I have a feeling Nepos gets his own orders from someone else, though,” Eltrys explained while I took the gold from him. From the weight, I could tell it was at least two hundred septims. “He has a house closer to Markarth’s peak, where the other rich live.” 

“Yeah, we found that out too,” I replied as Arissa and I began to leave, “We’ll let you know what else we find out.” 

Arissa and I ascended Markarth’s slopes, and I had to admit I was fascinated with the way the city was laid out and built into the side of a mountain. If nothing else, it was probably one of the less flammable cities if a dragon tried to pillage it. We found Nepos’ house before long, all it took was a quick bribe to one of the guards. Arissa wasn’t pleased with the amount of septims it took, however. Once we were inside the house, I watched as a woman approached us. 

“Excuse me. Do you have business here?” the woman asked politely, but impatient at the same time. 

“We’re here to see Nepos,” I explained, matching her tone. 

“We haven’t been expecting you,” the woman tried to sound sympathetic, “And the old man needs his rest. Come back some other time.” 

“We only need to ask a few questions,” Arissa chimed in, “We’ll only be a few minutes.” 

There was a pause and I could see the woman was not interested in changing her mind on the matter. However, before she could get frustrated enough to kick us out, we heard an elderly voice call out from the other room. “Wait. It’s okay, my dear. Send them in.” 

“Hmph. Yes, Nepos,” the woman sighed and motioned for us to follow her. I looked at the stonework on the house and was impressed by the architecture…more so than the dirty looks I was getting from the house servants. By the fire place I saw an old man sitting in a chair reading some sort of paper or journal. He closed it when we approached him. 

“I’m sorry about my housekeeper. She’s very protective of me,” Nepos explained sympathetically before looking up at me with an even gaze. “Now, what is it you want from me?” 

“I think you know why I’m here,” I said, uninterested in maintaining the façade of polite conversation, “I know about Weylin, and the thug you sent after us.” 

“Ah, yes,” Nepos retorted with a small, amused smile, “You’ve proven to be a real bloodhound. Well, you’ve sniffed me out.” 

“Well, that was easy,” Arissa observed under her breath. 

“I’ve been playing this game for almost twenty years,” Nepos continued, his voice becoming melancholy, “Sending the young to their deaths. All in the name of the Foresworn. And I’m tired. So tried.” 

“You get your orders from someone else, then? You’re just a messenger…” I concluded, and I did not like where this was going. “Who’s really behind all this?” 

“My King. Madonach,” Nepos explained, “When the uprising fell at the hands of the Nords, they threw him in the mines. I don’t know how, but he lives. I get his messages, and I hand out his orders without question.” 

“Why?” I asked. 

“Because my king told me to,” Nepos replied simply without any sort of hesitation. “No one escapes Cidhna Mine, but he doesn’t have to, to show his reach.” 

I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Nepos was giving us all this information far too easily and I could tell no one else in the room was moving; they were waiting. I glanced towards Arissa and she nodded in understanding. I gripped Dawnbreaker’s hilt tightly. 

“Why are you telling us all this?” I asked, but I knew the answer already. 

“My dear boy, what makes you think you’re getting out of here alive,” Nepos replied; a simple answer for a simple question. “You were seen coming in. The girl at the door is a Foresworn agent masquerading as a maid.” 

“Trap then?” Arissa asked as she looked around. I knew she was sizing up the fight already. 

Nepos nodded. 

“You aren’t the first to get this far, you know. You won’t be the last,” he explained. 

“I guess we’ll have to see about that…” I concluded. 

Nepos looked up at me as though he knew exactly what was about to happen. 

I noticed the sudden movement when the maid that had let us in drew her swords and, at that moment, Arissa and I sprung into action. I kicked Nepos hard in the chest, knocking him over along with the chair, and drew Dawnbreaker just in time to block a couple slashes by the pair of daggers she was wielding. She was quicker than I had anticipated; I struggled in the close space to maneuver around the room. 

“A little help here, Arissa!” I called out while narrowly avoiding a fast lunge. 

“I’m busy here!” Arissa called back, narrowly avoiding a man with a mace and flames shooting from his open hand. 

I nearly tripped over a table while trying to avoid the daggers, but the woman used the sudden opportunity and slice at my arm. I grunted as pain spread from the wound and I could feel it go warm from my blood. Angry, I swung my sword so that the woman moved back a step away from me, and I took the opportunity shout “YOL!” at her. She seemed confused at first, but her eyes widened and she screamed when a burst of flame ruptured from my Shout and ignited her hair and clothes. Her confusion left her wide open and cleaved Dawnbreaker’s burning blade across her already burned back. She went down immediately after that. 

I looked over at Arissa, who was still fighting another Foresworn of her own, although she didn’t seem to be struggling too much. She had both daggers in her hands and, I swear by the Nine, that woman could dance with a blade once she found her rhythm. I swear, she even looked like she was enjoying herself. 

“You… You’re not leaving here alive!” I heard a voice call from behind me. 

I turned and saw Nepos charging with sword of his own and his left hand burning with the magic he held in its. I pulled my shield off my back and held it in front of me as the old man sent forth some weak flames. The flames he sent out singed my armor and shield, but his old age had taken its toll on him. I walked forward and bashed his sword away with my shield and, with one swift slash, cut off his hand as the wrist with Dawnbreaker. He howled in pain and I gave him one more solid boot to his stomach. He fell back into the large fire place and that was where I left him to die. 

“Not a great way to go…” Arissa said from behind me, sheathing her daggers. The other Foresworn man was lying dead in the other room. 

“C’mon,” I said flatly, “Let’s go pay Thonar Silver-Blood a visit. We’re finishing this puzzle tonight…” 

The Treasury House, though not quite as close as we had originally assumed, still doesn’t very difficult to get to as we spent the whole time descending Markarth’s stone stairs. There were some guards who gave Arissa and I some very dirty looks as we passed; perhaps they didn’t appreciate outsiders about in the late evening. No one stopped us, however, and we found the treasury house close to the base of the city. 

“Oh, hello…” A woman in a low-cut top said from behind a counter while Arissa and I walked in. “Excuse me, but the Treasury House is really just for the patrons of the Silver-Blood fam- Hey, wait!” 

“Yeah, yeah. We heard it all before,” I replied impatiently as Arissa and I walked right passed her and towards the back of the room. Being assaulted by a bunch of Foresworn had destroyed my patience and now I didn’t care who I pissed off if it meant rooting out the cause of these murders. Madonach was still giving orders from prison? How? Somehow, I knew Thonar had the answer. So we waltzed right into his room where he sat, eating his dinner. 

“What are you doing here? I told them no visitors,” Thonar asked, sounding more annoyed than surprised. 

“We’re here to talk about Margaret,” I explained, “The woman that was murdered in the streets yesterday.” 

Thonar cocked an arrogant smile. 

“The imperial agent?” he asked, disinterested in prolonging the discussion he knew there was no getting out of, “That’s right. I knew. How many dogs is the Empire going to send after me? This is my business. My city! You Empire lovers should learn to stay out of it.” 

His temper was flaring, but so was mine and his last comment didn’t help. 

“Don’t you think you know me like you claim to know this city!” I yelled, gripping the hilt of my sword tightly, “I want to know about the Foresworn! And I want to know what you-” 

I was interrupted when I heard the sound of blades being unsheathed, followed by a silenced gurgle while a throat was suddenly slit. A scream could be heard soon after and I turned towards the door with Dawnbreaker drawn. 

“What is…? By the gods, Betrid!” Thonar called out. 

Arissa and I didn’t need to hear any more and we charged, apparently ambushing the so-called ambush predators. They were an older group of Bretons that had attacked, and unsurprisingly Arissa and I had made short work of them. By the end of the encounter there were two dead Foresworn agents, along with the corpse of a woman that was formerly Thonar’s wife. 

“They killed her…” Thonar said under his breath, on his knees and cradling his wife’s body. “Damn Madonach. Damn his Foresworn backside.” 

“I’m…sorry for your loss,” Arissa said as she walked up beside me. 

“No you’re not,” Thonar snapped, “You want to know what the Foresworn really are? They are my puppets. I have their ‘king’ rotting in Cidhna Mine. He was supposed to keep them under control… Now you know everything I can tell you.” 

“Doesn’t look like they’re your puppets any more…” I observed and turned to leave. 

That struck a nerve of his. 

“He should know better. No one escapes Cidhna Mine. Now get out…” he said, before he yelled it again. “Get out!” 

We left Thonar Silver-Blood to his grief, although I had to admit that something still…seemed off, about the whole thing. We had just exited the Treasury House when the woman that had been behind the counter approached us. She looked shaken and terrified, but was unharmed. 

“Th-thank you…for saving us,” she managed to say. 

“We did all we could… Don’t worry, I don’t think you were the target,” Arissa assured her. 

“You must be who Eltrys found to investigate these murders. He’s been trying to figure it out himself for so long… I’m glad he’ll be at ease,” she looked down, “When they attacked…I just ran. Is Thonar…?” 

“Alive,” I said flatly. Arissa nudged my arm and I sighed, trying to regain my composure. “What’s your name?” 

“Rhiada,” she replied. 

“Rhiada, you and your husband should leave,” I suggested to her. 

“What? Because of the Foresworn? But they didn’t seem to want me…” she replied, sound confused. 

“No… But they’ve tried to kill us twice for messing with their plans. Your husband is closer than ever, so what do you think they’ll do when they find that out.” 

She seemed to understand what I was getting at and nodded. “I’ll go pack my things. Do you know where Eltrys is?” 

“We’re going to see him right now. After we’re done, I’ll tell him to meet you at your home and to leave. It isn’t safe for him to stay in Markarth anymore,” I explained. 

She left us as the moon began to rise over Markarth. Arissa and I both sighed; things had become extremely complicated. These killings clearly weren’t being done randomly; this Madonach has been pulling strings in Markarth for the past twenty years. This conspiracy was rooted into the city’s core; there was no way of know was or wasn’t involved. 

“Let’s find Eltrys soon,” Arissa suggested. 

I nodded in agreement. 

While we walked back to the shrine, one city guard approached us with his hand dangerously close to the sword that was sheathed on his belt. I felt my body tense as he approached, but he never drew his weapon. 

“You two there. Heard the two of you have been looking into these murders…” he stated. 

Thonar’s doing, I figured. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the entire city guard in his pocket. No doubt he wanted to use the guards to scare us out of investigating the Foresworn. Though, it seemed like this particular guard was on old orders, because all in all he wasn’t using too many threats. 

“What of it?” I asked defiantly, “I figured the city guard could use some help.” 

“We don’t need any help from you, outsider,” the guardsman explained, “I’m telling you: stay out of Markarth’s business, or else.” 

“Or else what?” I asked, and I felt Arissa shifting around uncomfortably beside me. “I haven’t committed any crimes. Has talking been outlawed too in Skyrim?” 

The guard was not impressed with my sarcasm. 

“This is a warning, outsider,” the guard retorted simply, “Drop this foolishness. You won’t be asked again.” 

“Thank you, officer,” I replied with openly false honesty. 

The guard grunted and I walked passed him with Arissa, but I could feel his eyes staring at me as we walked. We decided it would be best if we took a slightly more scenic route to the Shrine of Talos, if only to keep that guardsman from figuring out where we were going. 

It was only a short amount of extra distance, but the moon was already reaching its peak by the time we made it to the shrine. I stopped short suddenly, and Arissa asked what was wrong. I could smell blood on the air, from inside the shrine…and it was fresh. Something was very, very wrong. 

“Arissa… Wait out here. Out of sight,” I told her, and she gave me a look that demanded explanation. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching for her bow. 

“No, don’t… Just stay out of sight. I smell blood coming from in there…” I explained, “I’ll go check it out. If you here fighting, come after me. But for now…just watch my back.” 

She stared at me for a few seconds with those strong, emerald eyes and slowly nodded her head. 

“Alright… But if I hear anything sounding remotely like a fight, I’m going to be right behind you.” 

“I know you will.” 

Arissa went and hid and I pushed open the door to the shrine. The smell of blood flooded by nostrils and my beast blood flared from the strong scent; someone was made to bleed out…slowly. I descended the steps leading down to the statue and that was when I saw them: three guards standing over a beaten body. Eltrys’ body. 

“What…have you done?” I asked, totally in shock. 

That shock was quickly turning into rage. 

“We warned you,” a guard said as he approached me. He didn’t wear a helmet like the others, so I could see the large scar and war paint he wore on his face. “But you had to cause trouble. Now we have to pin all these recent murders on you. Silence witnesses. Work. Work. Work…” 

He sounded so casual about what was happening, and I struggled to keep control. My hands clenched Dawnbreaker’s hilt tightly and I could feel myself visibly shaking. Gods, I knew what was happening… Aela warned me about it: 

“The beast blood obeys your command. That is Hircine’s gift. But be cautious. The blood of the wolf can sometimes be triggered in cases of extreme blood lust or rage…” 

I could feel my blood boiling painfully under my skin and my joints ached as I resisted the transformation. Part of me wondered why I was holding back… I could just transform and slaughter them all…snuffed out their lives that they did his, and the city would think it just some random werewolf attack. No witnesses… But another of me needed to know why, first. 

“Why did…you kill him?” I asked through gritted teeth. I could feel my fangs sharpening… 

“Same reason we kill the other natives who want to change things around here…” the guard explained, “We had a nice little deal going on between Thonar and Madonach until you and Eltrys started snooping around.” 

“Madonach…” I said under my breath. I felt my resistance waning fast and I placed my hand on the wall for support. I don’t know what these men thought I was doing but they laughed anyways. 

“Yes, Madonach. You wanted to find the man responsible for the killings? You’ll have plenty of time with the King in Rags when you’re in Cidhna Mine,” the man laughed loudly. 

Alright, that was all I needed to know. I began to growl and hug myself as I found the change begin to take over; it was a slow process if I wasn’t willfully doing it myself. I heard the door behind me open and, for a moment, I thought Arissa had come to join in after all…but the scent was all wrong. I began to turn to look who had entered, but I had turned just in time for the pommel of a large weapon to crack me over the back of the head. Everything went black and I felt my whole body give out suddenly; even the transformation had been stopped. My consciousness began to fade fast, but I could still hear those laughing guards as I passed out. 

“You’ll never see the sun again! Do you hear me?” the voice taunted me. The last words it spoke were the last things I could understand coherently, and they were the words I had heard before. 

No one escapes Cidhna Mine.


	13. Blood and Silver

“Are you alright, Dovahkiin?” a familiar voice asked me. 

I groaned and sat up from my soft bed and looked around; stone walls, but not at all like the ones in Markarth. The material was black and, despite the fire that was burning nearby, felt very cold. 

“Dovahkiin?” the voice asked again. 

I turned to the source of the sound and saw my mother. 

Now, there isn’t really any way to describe what it’s like to see your very deceased mother sitting by your bedside, alive and well, staring back at you. I couldn’t even begin to talk about the emotions. disbelief, joy, sadness, shock; they all came in just one crashing wave that almost drowned me. 

“Mother?” I asked slowly. 

She smiled; it was that warm, motherly smile that I remembered from my childhood. I was still too shocked to do anything but stare, stare at this woman that I knew was dead. Dead a long time, now…what sort of messed up dream was this. Her smile soon became less ‘motherly love’ and more ‘amused because I just got you pretending to kill some invisible warrior with a stick,’ but I didn’t recall doing anything like that. 

“You’ve lost your way, Dovahkiin…” she sighed softly. 

“What? Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked. I knew I sounded like some dumb kid in front of my dead mother, but for the moment I accepted the trade. 

“You are Dovahkiin,” she stated to me. 

There was a loud bang that echoed through the room, like two iron bars colliding, causing both of us to flinch. I couldn’t make out the source. 

“What does that mean?” I asked, flinching at another loud bang. 

“You are Dovahkiin,” she repeated again. As far as cryptic mom-messages went, this one was by far the most frustrating. 

The bangs began to get louder and less spread apart, to the point where my ears were ringing and I had to cover them to drown it out; It didn’t work. My mother sat there, giving me that warm smile, when suddenly the head of a huge black dragon with evil red eyes smashed through the wall behind her. I watched in horror as the dragon opened its massive jaws let loose a pillar of flame that consumed, first my mother, and then me. 

It all suddenly became pitch black. 

“GET UP, PRISONER!” 

I shot upright in my bed and nearly smashed my face against the rocky roof of my cell. At least, I quickly figured out that this was my cell, because it was small, my bed wasn’t comfortable at all, and I was on the wrong side of a set of iron bars. The orc on the other side of the bars proceeded to bang them again with her face, just to insult me, I guess. A quick turning of her keys, and she stepped inside. 

“Alright, Prisoner. Eyes front,” said the female orc in that demanding voice that reminded me of my commander in the imperial army. “You’re in Cidhna Mine, now. And we expect you to earn your keep.” 

I rubbed my aching head, surprised I couldn’t feel the crack on my skull from where I had been hit. I looked down at myself; I didn’t have any of my gear, just some old rags to act as cold. 

“Did you dress me?” I asked the orc seriously. 

“What?” she asked, probably wondering if she had heard me right. 

“I was wearing armor when I was brought in here, right?” I explained like it was the most pressing matter on my mind. “So, did you dress me up in these rags? I hope it was someone cute.” 

I swear, she looked like she wanted to bludgeon me with that mace. 

“There’s no resting your hide in a cell in this prison. Here, you work,” she explained, eager to deliver the speech I imagined she gave all the new recruits. “You’ll mine ore until you start throwing up silver bars.” 

By the Nine, I knew I this seemed familiar. 

“You got it?” she asked when she was done. 

“Sorry, ma’am. I sorta hit my head reeaally hard and I’m kinda deaf in this ear.” 

She did not like that joke one bit. 

“Don’t get smart with me,” she threatened, “I’m in charge. You keep it up, and I’ll have your toes cut off.” 

I held up my hands in surrender. 

“Understood,” was all I said. I felt like I had pushed my luck far enough. 

“Good. Now get down there,” she ordered. 

I did as she asked, and I was led out of my cell and into where I assumed we prisoners were being expected to work. I could see men of all races slaving away with pickaxes. There was a fire in the middle of the room, to which one guy seemed content to take his break there. What were the work schedules like here? I was in no mood to stay and find out. For some reason, I had a feeling there was somewhere I really needed to be. When I walked up to the fire, he seemed to regard my presence. 

“What are you in for, new blood?” he asked with a smirk. 

This guy knew he had just dropped one of the most cliché prison questions ever and looked damn proud of it. Color me impressed. 

“I could have been in here for a lot reasons,” I answered, “Just…no good ones, this time.” 

“Ah, the old ‘I’m actually innocent’ lines. Gotta love the classics,” he replied, sounding very amused, “My advice? Serve your time with the pickaxe and get out. You don’t want to end up with a shiv in the guts over a bottle of skooma.” 

“Right… So, where’s this Madanoch I’ve been hearing so much about?” I asked the Breton. 

“If you’re asking, that means the new lifer,” the man replied sounding more amused than ever, “Tough luck, friend, those guards sold you out but good.” 

“I’m well aware,” I retorted, still feeling a dull ache on the back of my head, “You still didn’t answer my question.” 

“No one talks to Madonach, I’m afraid. Not without getting past Borkul the Beast,” he explained, “And you don’t want to talk to Borkul the beast.” 

I stared at the man for a moment, but quickly began to feel just a little bit uncomfortable. 

“You are gold, friend…” I said a little nervously after I regained my composure. “Really. What’s your name? And what’s a…funny guy like you in here for?” 

“Uraccen. And murder.” He said flatly. 

“Ah, naturally.” 

I didn’t know what I expected, really. I pointed passed Uraccen towards the big orc that was standing conspicuously by an iron bar door. 

“Is that Borkul?” I asked. 

“Borkul the Beast, yes,” Uraccen explained, “Manonach’s guard. Big, even for an orc. Heard he ripped a man’s arm off and beat him to death with it. He’s old fashioned like that.” 

“Uraccen, please,” I chuckled, “You’re killing me, here.” 

“I really could,” he said ominously. 

That was my cue to leave. I decided I’d try my luck with this ‘Borkul the Beast’ instead. 

“New meat. So soft. Tender…” the orc said as I approached. 

I wondered if the time spent in the prison had made all these men crazy, or were they in here because they were crazy? Knowing my luck, it was both. Well, I sized up Borkul as I stood in front of him; he was huge, hairy, and had some white paint plastered all over his face. All in all; a charming orc, indeed. 

“What was it like killing your first one, huh?” he asked me suddenly. 

“Um… What?” I asked back. 

“You’re first man. Killing him. What was it like?” Borkul slurred, as if the thought of murder was intoxicating for him. 

I didn’t really feel like indulging his appetite. 

“Right… Anyways, I need to talk to Madonach. Is he home?” 

“You want to talk to the King in Rags? Fine,” Borkul grinned hungrily, “But first, you gotta pay the toll.” 

That didn’t sound pleasant at all. 

“How about you get me a shiv?” Borkul suggested, “Not that I need one, but it’s nice to have one in case I need to do a little bit of…’shaving’.” He chuckled and, once again, I began to wonder how long it would have taken me to go crazy in here. 

“Listen, Borkul, Madonach is expecting me,” I lied, but I was hoping this guy wouldn’t pick up on that, “So we can waste time out here, if you want, but I’ll be sure to let him know who held me up and kept him waiting.” 

We stared each other down for…well, it was a really long time. I couldn’t tell whether or not he was buying what I was selling, but after a while he began frown. 

“Do you think I’m really stupid?” he growled. 

Shit. 

“Well, I had hoped…” I admitted honestly. Now he looked pissed. 

Double-shit. 

If you’ve ever considered getting punched in the face by a pissed off orc, wearing iron gauntlets, in prison, my advice was ‘don’t’. Of course, it was a little too late for me at that point. I reeled back from the sucker punch but already my vision was blurring a little; Uccen might not have been kidding about the ‘arm’ thing after all. 

Borkul tried get me in the gut with his fist, but I moved right and caught his attacking arm held it tight against my left side. The move caught him by surprise and I seized the opportunity to hit him in the side of the face with two of the hardest swings I could manage. I figured that was all it was going to take, but the big orc merely spit out a couple teeth and looked at me with blood lust in his eyes. I might as well have punched the wall; being a werewolf had left me more physical adept than most, but that meant nothing to this opponent. 

Triple-shit. 

The big, angry orc had a decent throwing arm, as I found out when he grabbed me by my ragged shirt and through me into one of the wagons used for collecting ore. Thankfully, this one wasn’t full of ore waiting to break my fall, but the would and iron wasn’t much better. I groaned in pain and, with a lot of difficulty, pulled myself out of the cart. I wasn’t sure if anything was broken, but it sure felt like it. Maybe a rib…or three. 

I leaned on the cart while trying to regain my balance, but Borkul wasn’t in the mood to let me recover. A hard punch right around my right eye knocked all my senses out of whack for a few seconds. Suddenly I felt a pair of large, strong hands wrap around my throat like a pair of vices and began to squeeze. I choked and tried to grasp for air, but he wasn’t letting any enter. I tried desperately to pry his hands open, but the previous vice-comparison was still accurate. It didn’t take long for my lungs to start to burn and I couldn’t even muster that weird magic from my voice…because I couldn’t any sound that didn’t resemble gasping for some sort of breath. My vision began to fade, and I began to feel around me in a last, desperate effort to save myself. I grabbed something wooden, so I hit that son of a bitch with it as hard as I could. 

It turned out I had grabbed a pickaxe. 

I managed to smack the sharp edge of the pickaxe right above Borkul’s eye, causing the huge orc and cry out in pain, stumble back, and most importantly, let go of my neck. Air never tasted sweeter in all my life. Borkul was still clutching his face and blood was gushing from the wound. 

I stood up, still holding the end of the pickaxe in my hand. I could feel my own blood on my face and I was still trying to get my breathing under control, but I had something else on my mind as well. I let the pickaxe slide along my hands until I was gripping it just below the head, and quickly walked up to Borkul. Raising my weapon, I drove it down and bashed the orc hard on the side of the head with the flattened top of the pickaxe; the force caused Borkul to fall to his knees. I hit him once in the back and once more on the head again in the same way. That was enough to knock him out. 

I stood above my beaten opponent, heavily panting and one eye had definitely swollen shut from one of those punches. I looked around me and noticed I had drawn a crowd, but I was in no mood to entertain. I tossed the pickaxe aside, as I had no more use for it, and went to meet the King in Rags. I followed the short tunnel Borkul had been guarding and found myself in a small, but relatively private room. There, in the middle of writing, sat an old man at a desk. 

“Madonach, I presume?” I asked. 

“Well, well… Look at you,” the man said as he sat back in his chair and looked at me. “The Nords have turned you into an animal. A wild beast caged up and left to go mad.” 

This man didn’t know the half of it. 

“So, my fellow beast,” he continued, “What is it that you want? Answers about the Foresworn? Revenge for trying to have you killed.” 

“Yes,” I said a little weakly, as my throat was still in a lot of pain, “You have a lot to answer for.” 

“Do I? What about you?” Madonach accused, “What right did you have to meddle in my affairs? Kill my people? Was it worth it? Your truth?” 

“Was sending your people to their deaths worth your little war?” I spat back. 

He went silent for a moment, his eyes scanning me. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or impressed. 

“You’re one of us now, you see? A slave,” he explained and turned back to his paper that he was writing, “The boot of the Nord stepping on your throat. Maybe if you understood that, I could help you.” 

“What are you on about?” I asked impatiently. 

“There’s a man named Braig inside these mines. Besides me, he’s been here the longest,” Madonach explained, “Tell him I sent you. Ask him why he’s here. I want you know how widespread the injustice of Markarth is.” 

Madonach went quiet and I took my leave. I hadn’t planned on being stuck in this mine, but I did want answers. I also wanted out, and I had a feeling that Madonach was prepared for that too. In fact, I made note of the second set of iron bars between his room and Borkul’s post; that had to be it, and it was no doubt locked. So I figured I would play Madonach’s game, for now. 

Finding Braig was a simple task, and I listened to his sad tale of his daughter’s beheading and his imprisonment just by association with Madonach after the Foresworn Uprising all those years back. I had to admit, I understood his pain and anger. Once thing was certain; in this behind-the-scenes war, no party was innocent. But it was the innocent that were getting hurt. I spoke to each of the men on my way out too; either they were sworn to the Foresworn and planned on slaughtering as many of the Foresworn’s enemies as possible, rapists and murders to begin with, or for the most part, both. Grisvar admitted to just being an unlucky thief; I made note of that. 

I returned to Madonach shortly after. 

“I talked to Braig,” I announced as I entered his room. 

“Imagine hearing a story like that over and over again,” Madonach lamented, “Each time a different family. Each time a different injustice.” 

“You think that justifies all the innocent people that have died?” I growled. 

“You think war can be won without shedding a few innocent lives?” he replied like a man who had accepted the cold calculus of war. “But your meddling above ground reminded me how removed I’ve been from the struggle. My men and I should be in the hills, fighting.” 

“So you do have a way out,” I concluded. 

“Yes,” Madonach admitted. 

I sighed. “So how many innocents are going to die when you and your men here run amok in Markarth’s streets?” I asked, beginning to develop a really bad feeling. 

“The Nords don’t deserve any pity from us,” Madonach explained, “This city is rightfully ours.” 

“Hmm.” 

I went silent, and Madonach once again turned to look at me. He was trying to figure out what I was thinking; I could tell. I almost had all the pieces left of the puzzle… 

“One more question,” I said, looking back up at him, “What’s your connection to Thonar Silver-Blood?” 

“I had Markarth. My men and I drove the Nords out. We had won, or so we thought,” Madonach said, recounting his story as if he had recited it to himself hundreds of times; I imagined he had done so more than that. “Retribution was swift,” he recalled with anger, “I was captured, quickly tried, and sentenced to death. But Thonar stopped it.” 

“Why?” 

“He wanted the Foresworn at his beck and call, that I would direct their rage at his enemies and spare his allies.” 

“A puppet, then.” I said, remembering how Thonar himself had described the arrangement. 

“Yes… Humiliating at first, but I knew he would let his guard down one day. That he would come to trust that I was under control.” 

“So you murdered his wife?” 

Madonach laughed. “Actually, that particular hit was just another order…by Thonar himself,” he corrected me, and seemed to notice my shock, “Indeed, I didn’t understand it either, but I had other ways to get him besides attacking his weak marriage.” 

I had no words to say to that. I had no way of describing the amount of disgust I felt for either of these men. 

“You two are just playing a sick game with each other…and you use others as pawns,” I growled under my breath. I had heard enough from Madonach; I had all the answered I needed. It was time to clean up. 

“That’s war, boy… Like I said, you can only win war by sacrificing innocent lives,” Madonach replied, oblivious to what was happening. 

“Or sometimes by sacrificing a few guilty ones,” A voice completely unlike my own snarled. 

I triggered my beast blood and quickly began to transform. Madonach turned to face me, suddenly in shock and fear, as my new form towered over him. I barked once, took another step, and the old Breton tried to cast him fire at me. Unfortunately for him, all he could do was scream as I pinned him down against his desk and ripped his heard effortlessly from his chest and swallowed it whole. 

The whole section of mine I was in became a blood bath. When I stepped out of Madonach’s tunnel and the rest of the men saw me, they tried to attack me with pickaxes and magic. After I quickly tossed a couple around like ragdolls and began to feast on their hearts, however, most gave up the fight and ran. 

Cowards. 

Borkul, having awakened from our previous fight, ran as fast as he could once I turned to him and roared. I had to admit, there was a certain satisfaction in chasing down prey. I killed and fed, and repeated the process as necessary. Most of the Foresworn prisoners had taken to hiding, but I tracked them down easily by their smell alone. Most people thought ‘the smell of fear’ was a metaphor, but it really could be quite literal; you just followed the smell of soiled pants. 

I slaughtered every Foresworn man I came across, even old Uccen. I made especially sure he was dead. Lastly, I happened upon the every-unlucky Grisvar, who was cowering against a cart. It was hard to keep my blood lust contained, but I eventually decided to leave him be; it was the lucky break he sorely needed. 

Satisfied that the mine had been sufficiently cleared, I walked back to Madonach’s secret escape tunnel and, grabbing the bars with both hands, ripped them out of the stone wall; I had consumed enough hearts that I felt particularly powerful. Howling loudly in victory, I tossed the metal bars aside and sprinted through the tunnel. 

That tunnel eventually led into some Dwemmer ruins, which in turn had a few nasty surprises of my own. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, especially in my wolf form, so I was able to get passed what I could and merely killed what I couldn’t. After about an hour, I was at the end of the ruins and faced with a large, dwarven door. I could smell the fresh, outside hair with my sensitive nose and, at that moment, nothing could have smelled better. I fell to my knees and began to breath deeply, letting the wild rage slowly dissipate so that I could transform back. It had taken a while to master that trick, but I managed after another five minutes. 

Once again it was just me in rags. Delightful. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door and was almost blinded by the rush of light, even if it was just moon light, which was a pretty significant difference from the dimly lit mine and ruins. I stepped outside and stretched my arms while breathing in the fresh, free air. 

“…Erik?” 

My eyes shot opened as I recognized the voice. I looked in front of me and saw Arissa staring back at me in shock…which was the same expression I was wearing. We both kinda stood there like that for a little longer than I cared to admit. Finally, she began to walk up to me. 

“Er, Arissa… I’m-“ I began before I was interrupted by a rather untimely right hook to the cheek. The cheek by my still swollen eye. “Ow! What in Oblivion was that-” 

She interrupted me again by throwing her arms around me and hugging be tightly. Damn, women were confusing me. 

“Sorry…” I finished and hugged her back. 

“Next time, you’re not leaving me outside the damn shrine,” she demanded with a frown, looking up at me with eyes that had just a hint of glaze to them. 

“Yeah… I promise you that,” I smiled. 

She smiled back, but our little reunion was interrupted by the sound of clapping hands. I recognized the scent and growled before I saw him, and I looked behind Arissa to see Thonar Silver-Blood standing there. 

“Excellent work,” he said smugly, “My eyes inside Cidhna Mine tell me that Madonach is dead.” 

I stared at him silently. 

“…You’ve done a great service to the Silver-Blood family,” he continued, a little more hesitant, “I’ve had the Jarl officially pardon you, and taken care of a few other loose ends.” 

I still didn’t say anything. He cleared his throat before he walked up to me and dropped a ring into my hand, which was obviously enchanted. 

“Here, how about a little token for your efforts? My family’s ring and all of your belongings that the guards confiscated from you when you were jailed,” he offered, sighing as if all this was supposed to appease me…or buy my silence. 

I looked behind him and saw Eltrys’ wife, Rhiada, standing there holding what was obviously my equipment. From the look on her eyes she seemed to have been crying up until just recently. I had a feeling I knew why. 

“Is this ring supposed to bring back Eltrys?” I asked suddenly, glaring at Thonar with a gaze that made even Arissa step back from me, “And all the other innocent people you and your idiot family sent to their deaths because you thought you could control a madman?” 

Thonar’s smug expression soon turned to one of anger when he replied to me. “Who cares about one useless smelter and a bunch of other poor filth-” 

I interrupted him when I felt my anger explode and I grabbed him by his expensive clothes and pulled him over towards the wall and pinned him against it violently. He struggled and grunted in pain, but my hands would not be moved; my rage was a force that would not be contained. 

“Why do you care what that smelter-“ he began, but I interrupted him again with a hard punch to his mouth. He cried out in pain and blood dripped from his mouth. “You’ll pay for that!” 

“That man had a name that you killed,” I snarled, my eyes burning amber as they pierced his, “I spoke to Madonach while I was in there. Why did you kill your wife? Why did you have Eltrys killed!?” 

I pulled Thonar back from the rocky wall only to slam him up against it again. 

“WHY!?” I demanded. 

“H-He was getting too close,” Thonar quickly answered in panic. I think he finally understood just how dangerous his situation was. “I-I-I had to deal with him. He had…” 

Thonar’s voice trailed off and I noticed he wasn’t looking at me anymore. I followed his gaze…and it was directed right towards Rhiada. She was the last piece of the puzzle. 

“You didn’t have him killed just because he was getting too close…or you would have just tried to have us killed too…” I said lowly, and Thonar began to look at me once again. I could hear his heart beast speeding up and I knew he had no idea how lucky he was that I had just eaten. “You had your wife killed too… Just so you could steal a poor smelter’s wife?” 

Thonar, having been found out, watched Rhiada’s face turn to disgust and horror, and I watched his own rage consume him. “Yes, I did… And I would again. Who did that pathetic smelter think he was to possess something so beautiful when I could not?” he said in a seething tone. I had heard enough. 

I pulled Thonar away from the wall and began to drag him with me towards Rhiada, or so it seemed. He struggled uselessly in my grasp, but it was too late for him to do anything against me. I dragged him right past the woman he had murdered Eltrys for, and held him before the large flight of stone stairs. He finally realized my intention. 

“No! No wait! Please” He begged, “I-I have gold. I have-“ 

I tossed him down the large flight of steps and he cried out as he fell down upon them. I stood and watched as he rolled; his flailing limbs, desperate to do anything to stop him at first, soon resigned themselves to the fate that had been delivered to them. When he finally came to a stop where there was a break in the steps, I noticed his face stained with blood and his limbs looked twisted unnaturally…I couldn’t tell if their twitching meant he was dying or not, and by the Nine I didn’t care. 

“Someone better warn the healer that Lord Silver-Blood had an unfortunate accident on the stairs,” I told Rhiada, looking back at her. 

“Yeah, someone better do that,” Rhiada said in a monotone voice. 

I turned to Arissa, who looked a little shocked but nodded in understanding. 

“You ready to go?” she asked. 

I nodded, and leaving was exactly what we did. We descended the steps, following Thonar’s painfullooking path. When we passed him, I spared a glance to check his status. He wasn’t moving, his bones were obviously broken, and blood began to trickle from his wounds and down the steps, but I could still hear a faint heart beat. I left it up to the gods to decide whether he lived or not. In the end, I guess it was true about what they said about this city: 

Blood and silver are what flowed through Markarth.


	14. Revenge

“Watch out, it’s coming back!” Arissa shouted as the dragon swooped over her head. 

We had been on the road for only a few days since leaving Markarth before the people of a small mining village had asked for our help killing a dragon that had been harassing them. Arissa, having remembered when I had told her about my encounter with the dragon near Whiterun, had told these people about my ‘experience’ and offered to sell our services for gold. She conveniently left out, however, that at that time I had a whole legion of guards backing me up and she wasn’t with me during that time. Still, I went along with it; how could we leave these people to deal with a dragon on their own. 

It was easy to forget that kind of sympathy when you have icy chunks raining down on you. 

“Aim for its wings!” I shouted towards Arissa, “We need to get it on the ground!” 

So we played a little ‘cat and mouse’ with the dragon for a bit, using arrows on it and hiding over and over again until the beast had taken sufficient damage, or perhaps got annoyed at our hiding, and landed on the ground to engage us. A grounded dragon meant it was easy to hit, but that also made them attack more aggressively, as I had noted. The beast would attack with its icy breath or snap at us with its huge jaws when we got close. “YOL!” I shouted when the dragon began to bring its jaws a little too close to me for comfort, and the fire that formed from my voice caused the dragon to back off and snarl. 

“Hey ugly, I have your arrow right here!” Arissa called out with her bow drawn. 

The dragon turned to face her, and that was when she let her arrow fly. It struck the dragon right by its eye, causing it to roar in pain and brush its head against the ground and trees to try and dislodge the piece of steel and wood. Charging, I drew Dawnbreaker and lunged forward, driving the blade into the side of the dragon’s neck. With a cry of effort, I pushed down on the hilt while the blade was still lodged inside the dragon’s flesh until it gave. In one swift motion, the blade burned and cut the dragon’s throat wide open. The overgrown lizard could only gurgle in agony, but its death came soon after. 

“Well, that takes for that- Whoa!” Arissa suddenly exclaimed. 

It happened again. 

The dragon’s flesh began to burn away and some weird light began to flow into me. I braced myself for it this time, and suddenly I felt a just a little more powerful. I didn’t really understand what it meant whenever I killed a dragon and this happened, but something in my blood told me I was…meant for it. By the time the process was finished, and the dragon was nothing more than bones, Arissa looked at me with a stunned expression. 

“Wow… Y’know, when you told me all those guys thought you were a Dragonborn…I thought you were just trying to impress me,” Arissa said with a cheeky grin, “Guess maybe you were right after all.” 

“Heh, yeah…” I said, feeling a little sheepish, “It’s weird. Whenever I’m close to a dragon that’s been killed…I just kinda feel this kind of power.” 

“Wow…” Arissa said, genuinely fascinated. “And that thing you did just now with your voice… You did the same thing in Markarth. That’s part of being Dragonborn, right?” 

“Yeah, I guess so… But I never read the manual for it,” I admitted, causing Arissa to giggle a little. 

“Well, I always had a feeling you were special…” she admitted as well, “Maybe that’s what it’s been, all along.” 

“I think you noticed how special my bag of coin was first,” I suggested. 

She punched my arm playfully. “Well, after that, obviously!” she exclaimed. 

We both laughed at that, standing around the skeleton of a dragon that already looked ancient despite having been alive and trying to kill us only minutes earlier. After a while, I sort of went into deep thought and sighed. “Honestly, I most of the time have no idea what I am… Am I supposed to be some kind of legend? Because I never asked for that.” 

Arissa seemed to consider what I had said for a few moments, but then she just flashed me that charming smile of hers. 

“No matter what, it doesn’t change who you are on the inside,” she explained, “That’s what counts.” 

“You know, I’m pretty sure I read the same book with cliché dialog like that,” I said with a barely contained smile; it still felt good to hear it. 

“Hey, you don’t underestimate the classics,” she retorted. 

“I suppose you’re right,” I conceded before placing a hand on her shoulder, “Thanks, Arissa.” 

I turned to the dragon’s corpse and put my hands on my hips, whistling. 

“How much do you think we could get for the bones?” I asked curiously. 

“Hmm. I dunno… But I bet rich Nords would love a skull,” Arissa suggested. 

“Blacksmiths might like the bones and scales too for smithing purposes. We should take some with us and see if anyone wants’em,” I agreed. 

We spent a good half hour gathering decent pieces of bone and collecting a good bag full of scales. That was the easy part, unfortunately; the bones and scales were way heavier than they looked! In the end, we decided to leave the skull behind. 

While walking back towards the mining camp, Arissa noticed a strange stone structure that looked to be littered with cattle, wagons, and other property dragons seemed to take a shining to. We got a closer look at it, and while Arissa was pleased to find a chest full of valuable goodies, I was distracted by the weird wall with familiar symbols; it looked just like the walls in Bleak Fall Barrows and Dustman’s Cairn. Also, just like those walls, this one had set of symbols glowing. 

“What is that?” I asked, stepping a little closer. 

“What is what? Looks like a bunch of nonsense to me,” Arissa observed briefly after looking up from the chest. 

“But why are those markings glowing?” I asked, and they only got brighter as I got closer. 

“Um… I don’t see any glowing markings. Are you…feeling okay?” 

I ignored her question, resigning myself to getting as close to the symbols as I could. It was that strange feeling again, like I could almost read it, but the words it made me think of was on the tip of my tongue. My vision got blurry and I felt a little light-headed, but at the same time a have of clarity washed over me. 

“Su…” I said under my breath. 

“What?” Arissa asked. 

“Su,” I repeated, “That’s the word.” 

“How can you tell?” 

I shrugged at her question, and we decided to move on. I didn’t take us long to make it back to the mining camp, and the miners were more than happy to reward us for slaying the dragon with a couple hundred septims, some food, and some water. We ended up sleeping there over night before heading out the next morning. Our destination? Solitude; or at least, the lands near solitude. If we wanted to track down the Nord Arissa was after, we needed to talk to the Stormcloaks there. Fortunately, Arissa was no stranger to this land, and she had accidentally stumbled upon the Stormcloak camp once before. 

“So, why would he be hanging out near all these soldiers?” I asked Arissa when we were just outside the camp, “Who’s he hiding from?” 

“The Thalmor, I’m pretty sure,” Arissa explained, “If he’s smart, he’ll stay close to the camp so he can use the soldiers to the advantage if they ever show up.” 

“Then let’s get started,” I told her and began to walk forward. 

“Thanks... I guess I owe you…again,” Arissa said with a small smile. 

I nodded and smiled back, and we walked into the camp. When we entered, I felt tensions rise from a lot of soldiers. It wasn’t me they were looking at though, which was a little unexpected; it was Arissa they were staring at. We found the commander’s tent, but we were stopped by two Stormcloak soldiers with their weapons unsheathed. 

“Hold, friend. What business do you have with Commander Istar Cairn-Breaker,” one of the soldiers asked. 

“Tell your commander my name is Erik, and I-” I began before Arissa stepped forward suddenly. 

“Tell him ‘an old friend found his locket’” Arissa demanded. 

The soldier seemed hesitant to take orders from Arissa, probably due to the fact she was obviously Imperial, and that made things awkward enough. After a short stare-down, he seemed to growl to himself go back into the commander’s tent. After some apparent shouting and throwing-about of things, the soldier quickly ran from the tent and a large Nord stepped out wearing bear-skin armor. When he saw Arissa and looked at her with a fury, I almost drew my blade. One obvious wink from Arissa, however, seemingly caused his rage soon turned a look of defeat. 

“Do you have it?” he asked, calming down. 

“I might,” Arissa said coyly, “Do you have my septims?” 

“Do not forget, Arissa, that my letting you live was payment enough,” the Nord growled. 

“Yeah…but I got you out of a bit of a bind with a tip about that ambush. A favor for a favor, so finding this…” Arissa pulled a delicate-looking amulet from one of her pouches, “I took as more of a ‘job request’. The Guild doesn’t really like when I steal things back from them.” 

“Fine…” Istar grumbled and pulled out a pouch of coins from his best and began to count out septims. “Fifty septims for the return of my amulet.” 

“One hundred and fifty septims, you mean?” Arissa retorted back. 

One hundred-fifty!? Why I outta…” Istar began to get that look of outrage. 

“OR,” Arissa began, that devilish smirk returning, “You give me some information I want, and we call it seventy-five and even.” 

“Hmm… Fine, what do you want to know?” he conceded, that look of anger receding again. 

“I want to know about a Nord man that occasionally checks in at your camp,” Arissa explained, and I realized her game, “Has a blue marking on his face.” 

“What makes you think I’ve seen a man like that?” Istar questioned. 

“I know you have. Now, unless you me to return this locket…” Arissa began. 

“It’s an amulet, women!” Istar corrected her, “And fine. That milkdrinker doesn’t even have the stones to join us, but he loves to stay close so we keep him safe. He’s holed up in a cave not too far from here. ‘Skygrove Caver,’ it’s called.” 

“Perfect!” Arissa exclaimed and exchanged the amulet for the gold, “A pleasure, Istar. Let’s do this again, sometime.” 

“I see you again, Arissa, and I’ll toss you over the mountain,” Istar promised, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “By the way, be careful if you plan on going near that area. The ground has been unstable lately.” 

Arissa and I left the Stormcloaks to their business, as we attended to ours. Fortunately, as I said before, Arissa knew this area of Skyrim particularly well. We managed to track down Skygrove Cavern before nightfall. 

Inside was our typical system for dungeon-crawling: stay out of sight, and kill quietly with bows. It worked out pretty well at first. There were some wolves near the entrance and we dispatched them quickly. I figured we’d skin them for their pelts on the way back and left them there. 

The next section of the cave? Not so easy; there were spiders everywhere. We managed to sneakily take a few out, but when we eventually came across an open chamber in the cave, I knew an ambush spot when I saw it. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any other way forward other than to spring it. Arissa and I lit up some torches and drew our swords. When the spiders attacked, we managed to keep them from swarming us with the flames of the torch and used our blades to kill them. I got bit a couple of times and the frostbite poison was…uncomfortable. I toughed it out until all the spiders were dead, though, and drank a potion after to cleanse my wound and restore my stamina. 

“So, uh… How we get passed the iron bars?” I asked when we found where I assumed we had to continue, and it was blocked by over a dozen iron bars. 

“There should be a switch or something around here… There usually is right?” Arissa suggested, but she began to see my point. 

There wasn’t a switch in sight. We searched the chamber high and low. We used our torches to burn away any webs that could reasonably hide a pull-chain or lever, but nothing seemed to be around. We took break for a bit, resting on the ground while we had the time. Eventually, I looked at Arissa, who seemed to be staring at one of the torches that was beside the path we had to go. 

“Oh, they didn’t…” I said, sounding seriously disappointed in our obliviousness. 

Arissa gave me a look of ‘Wow, we are so dumb,’ and walked up to the torch. She moved her hand up to it and I watched it turn clockwise; the iron bars receded to clear the path in front us. We got over our self-disappointment and continued on. We avoided a few booby-traps along the way. Finally we came to another open chamber, and I saw a Nord man standing on a raised wooden floor. 

“Who’s there?” the Nord asked in surprise when he noticed us approach. “What are you doing here?” 

“Is that our guy?” I asked Arissa but, when I looked at her, all I saw was rage. 

“Gunnher!” Arissa called out, drawing her sword. 

“What? How do you know that name?” the Nord, obviously Gunnher, asked. 

“How can I forget?” Arissa spat, her voice seethed in pain and anger, “Don’t you remember what you did to my family?” 

Gunnher went silent for a few minutes, before I sudden realization hit him. “Ah, so it is you… You’ve grown up so much! If only your father could see you now…” he replied in a mocking tone. 

“Don’t you dare talk about my father! I’ve come to avenge him… I will kill you hear and now!” Arissa called out; the challenge was initiated. 

“He’s mine,” she said to me flatly, and I knew better than to argue when she gave me the look she was currently giving me. 

“What? You want to fight me, girl? You don’t want to hear why-” Gunnher began to say before Arissa pulled out her bow, pulled an arrow back, and fired it at him. 

The arrow narrowly missed, but Gunnher apparently got the message. The Nord grabbed his battle axe and shield that he had beside him, holding it up just in time to block an arrow from hitting him in the chest. He began to charge down the walkway leading down from the raised floor, holding up his shield and blocking each time Arissa fired an arrow at him. He quickly began to close the distant between the two of them, and tossed his shield after blocking another arrow and raising his large axe to attack. I drew my sword and prepared to help, but Arissa merely side-stepped the first blow and, with quick reflexes, shot an arrow into the back of Gunnher’s leg. The Nord cried out in pain and fell to one knee, but still tried to swing the axe behind him to take Arissa by surprise. She was still two quick for him, however, and quickly backed out of the weapon’s reach and fired another arrow, pinning Gunnher’s other leg into the ground. 

“You bitch…” Gunnher cursed under his breath, “Figures you wouldn’t fight fair…” 

“There’s nothing fair about vengeance…” Arissa replied, pulling another arrow back on her bowstring, and aiming this time for Gunnher’s head, “Any last words before I send you to Oblivion?” 

The two stared each other down, but it looked like Gunnher knew his position. He was on his knees, his legs useless to him, with the winner of their fight ready to take the killing blow. Still, despite all that, Gunnher smiled. I think all the time spent in a cave had made him truly crazy. 

“You know… It’s funny. I’m pretty sure I said the same thing to your father…and you know what he said back to me? He said-” 

Arissa let the arrow finish his statement for him. 

“Yeah, I think I know exactly what he said,” she replied cooly, before turning back to me and sighing. When she met my eyes, I swear I saw her begin to tremble a little bit, like a wave of emotion had hit her all at once. 

“Hey, are you okay…?” I asked, sheathing Dawnbreaker and starting to walk up to her. 

Arissa looked like she wanted to say something to me, but we were interrupted by a sudden, violent tremble and knocked me off my feet. Arissa quickly rushed to my side and helped me up. 

“What in Mara’s name was that…? Are you all right?” she asked. 

“Yeah, I think so…” I grunted, a little embarrassed I had fallen over in the first place, “I think we should leave…” 

It was probably a good suggestion, but I noticed behind Arissa the path we had taken to get here collapsed; there was no going back that way. The cave began to shake again, and this time it had almost knocked both of us over. I could hear a cracking sound overhead, and when I looked up, I saw the cause. The whole ceiling looked like ice that was cracked after just enough weight was applied without going through it. 

“Oh no…” I said under my breath, and looked around desperately for another way out. 

“This way!” Arissa called out and pulled me in the direction she began to run by a piece of my armor. We sprinted as fast as we could, almost falling over each other when another tremor caused huge chunks of rock to fall from the ceiling. All I could do was silently pray to the gods that we wouldn’t be crushed. The whole cave was collapsing! 

“Oh shit!” I cursed when we got out of the first chamber and followed the path right to a ledge. There was water coming down from the ceiling and filled some kind of chamber below…far below. I looked over the ledge; there was no way to tell how deep it was from up here, but I could tell it was a long drop. This was a really bad time to discover I had a minor fear of falling from unknown heights. 

“We have to jump!” Arissa told me. 

“I am not doing that!” I shouted back. 

The cave was still collapsing, even in this larger chamber. 

“It’s jump or die!” 

I knew she was right. I walked as close as I could to the ledge and readied myself to do it…or at least, I planned on doing that. As soon as I got close, I felt a hard shove against my back and I fell over the ledge down towards the cold water below. I couldn’t tell if I was screaming, or if my voice had gotten trapped in my throat from the speed at which I was falling. I was at the mercy of gravity, now, as I watched the dark water quickly approaching. 

I heard the loud smacking sound as I hit the water, and passed out as pain and an icy chill quickly shot through my body.


	15. Longing for Home

“…Erik…you alive…?” the familiar voice called out to me. 

My vision was groggy and my whole body was wet and freezing. I felt around and found myself laying against something rocky and uncomfortable, but I used it to pull myself out of the water. I wiped the water from my face and looked around. I wasn’t sure what happened after I…fell…or where I ended up. It looked like I was in some kind of underwater lake…fantastic. I rolled over and saw Arissa staring down at me. 

“Hey…” I said weakly, “Glad you made it too.” 

“You were laying there for a while,” she explained with a coy grin. 

“Yeah, yeah…” I groaned and sat up slowly. “By the way… Did you push me?” 

She laughed instead of giving me an answer. 

Arissa explored a little further in and I took a few minutes to try and dry myself out. Luckily, it didn’t take long for her to find something, and I heard her shout “This way! It looks like a way out!” at me at the far end of the cavern. We met up in front of what looked to be some destroyed Dwemer ruins. Fortunately for us, and I mean fortunate in that we were too lucky for words, the Dwemer contraption used to quickly return to the surface was still intact. 

“Wow…” Arissa said, staring at the lever. 

“I know,” I agreed. 

I pulled the lever and braced myself as the gears on either side of the platform began to turn and we began to rise from the ground. I felt my legs get a little shaky; these weird dwarven death traps always made me paranoid, but Arissa seemed fine with it. In fact, she noticed my discomfort and seemed heavily amused by it, much to my annoyance. At least it didn’t take long before the lift came to a stop and I could see sunlight shimmering through the dwarven metal doors. 

Talos be praised, I’d never been so happy to see the sun in all my life. 

Having escaped the cave, Arissa and I decided to find a decent place to set up camp. The lift had taken us up to the other side of the mountain, but we still found a road to follow to…well, I guess we didn’t have much in mind for a destination. We sorta just…walked forward, not really saying much to one another. Arissa seemed deep in thought, and after everything that had happened in Skygrove, I really didn’t blame her. 

“So… Are you okay with everything that happened in there?” I asked to break the silence. 

“Yeah… It just…doesn’t feel like I thought it would,” Arissa replied, sounding a little disppointed. 

“I know the feeling… Revenge is never really as sweet as it seems.” 

“Right… Still, you stuck by me through all that. You have no idea how thankful that-“ 

We were interrupted, quite rudely I might add, by a trio of steel-armoured Nords who approached us and proceeded to block the road. I could tell they were all trying to look pretty tough, but after the rough time we had racing out of a collapsing cave, I was not in the mood. 

“Can I help you…gentlemen?” I asked, my hand sliding down slowly to Dawnbreaker’s hilt. 

“Listen, we’re here to teach you a lesson. You sure pissed someone off but good…” one of the men explained to us. 

Arissa and I looked at each other for a second and then looked back to them. 

“Uh… Me?” I asked, pointing to myself. 

“No!” the Nord shouted back and pointed at Arissa, “Her!” 

“Ohhhh,” I replied and looked at Arissa, “That makes much more sense. Maybe someone didn’t appreciate your five-fingered discount.” 

“Weeeell, maybe they shouldn’t leave all their nice stuff lying around,” Arissa sighed, “I mean, it’s like they just WANT me to take it…” 

“Listen, we don’t really care why they want you hurt,” the thug cracked his knuckled to make himself look tough, “We just know we get paid to hurt ya good.” 

“Listen, you guys… We’ve had a really long night… I don’t suppose you’ll just let us go and pretend you never saw us?” Arissa asked with her best ‘pretty please’ voice. 

The Nords drew their weapons and charged while doing their best battle cries. 

“I guess not!” I said, drawing Dawnbreaker. 

I’m not going to say it was a particularly difficult fight. Their steel armor made it harder to hit their weak points, sure, but either of us could probably take these thugs by ourselves. With the two of us? We barely had to try. We didn’t even have to kill them in the end. We just left them lying on the ground with some minor flesh wounds, tied them up, blind-folded them, and made them swear on their honor that they wouldn’t track us further. Nords were fickle like that. We also took their weapons to sell later as compensation for the trouble they caused us. 

Arissa and I made camp a couple hours later. Skyrim’s moons had risen to their full height by the time we found flat enough to set up the tents and get a fire going. We sat beside one another in front of that fire, drinking our mead and staring up at the night sky talking and laughing. It went on for quite a bit before the alcohol began to settle in and the both of us were sufficiently buzzed. I wasn’t sure if it was just because of everything that had happened or if I had drunken just a little too much mead, that made me ask Arissa to tell me more about her past. She looked away for a moment, like she was considering something for a moment, before looking back to me and nodding slowly. 

“After everything you’ve done for me…I guess it’s time I told you everything, huh?” Arissa admitted, “It’s kind of a long one. Are you sure you want to hear it?” 

“I have all night,” I said, taking another sip, “So sure, let’s hear it.” 

Arissa nodded and leaned against me a little bit as she began to reminiscence about her past. She looked so deep in thought again; I figured she was just trying to figure out a good way to start her story. She was a story-teller at heart. 

“I wasn’t always who I am now…wanderer, cutpurse…” she began after taking a deep breath, “I had a home once. Oakshore… A great estate just north of Hammerfell.” 

“I’m not familiar with it,” I admitted, “What’s like?” 

“Beautiful…” Arissa answered soulfully, “It’s like an oasis once you reach the end of the desert… The mild winters lead to bountiful harvests every year, which made us very wealthy. I was raised every bit to be a nobleman’s daughter.” 

“Huh, I always sort of felt like you held yourself like a noble…” I commented, “I suppose there was some merit to it after all…” 

“Really? I never really noticed,” Arissa replied. 

“Yeah… My father was…sort of noble. It’s complicated, but I saw the type when I was a kid. You just kinda reminded me of them whenever you’re talking with the high-society types, y’know? Like it was a role that came naturally to you,” I explained. 

“Huh… Well, it’s kind of nice to know I still have some part of that life with me…besides, I guess it does really help me fool dumb nobles…” she said and smiled. “Anyways, we sold crops to the Empire and the Adlmeri Dominion for years. One day, my father was approached by a Thalmor official named Vidric. That day he wanted to buy more than crops. They wanted to buy Oakshore itself.” 

Suddenly, I didn’t like where this story was going. Talking about the Thalmor was never a pleasant topic. 

“Go on,” I said a little more lowly than I had intended. “What did your father say?” 

“He refused,” Arissa recalled, sounding both sad and proud, “Oakshore was our home. Our paradise. He wasn’t about to let anyone take it from us.” 

“I take it the elves didn’t like his answer?” I asked. 

“You can say that… Oakshore was too important to the Dominion,” Arissa explained, “It would make a perfect stronghold let them keep tabs on Hammerfell. So Vidric made a plan.” 

“They do so love their plans…” I said, mainly to myself. 

Arissa nodded slowly regardless. 

“He harassed my father day and night. Then, he sent Gunnher to pose as Stormcloaks who would protect my father from the Thalmor…for a price,” she continued, beginning to stare at the crackling fire, “Gunherr’s men began causing trouble. Stealing… hurting people. I knew paying Gunnher was a mistake, but my father didn’t know what else to do.” 

“It’s not like you had an Empire to turn to…” I murmured bitterly, and Arissa shook her head in agreement. 

“It was…complicated. No one else in Oakshore knew that he was accepting help from the Stormcloaks. Knew what that would do to us, if the Empire ever found out…” her voice drifted off. 

“They probably would have put your heads to the block then and there…” I concluded. 

“Well, one night I followed one of Gunnher’s men to a farmer’s house. He barged in, demanding ale and break. When he tried to touch the farmer’s wife…” her voice faded off again. 

“…Things got ugly?” I finished for her. 

Arissa nodded slowly in response. 

“He fought back. He didn’t win,” Arissa explained in a low voice, “I watched through the window as Gunnher’s lapdop just…slaughtered them both.” 

Arissa went quiet for a bit, and I placed a hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her…or something. I was kinda bad at it, though. 

“Arissa… You know there was nothing you could have done. If you had tried to stop them…” I tried to explain. 

“I know…” she agreed, smiling a little at the comforting touch before staring back towards the fire intently, “But I did run as fast as I could. I hid nearby as all of Oakshore gathered at the farmer’s house, yelling and demanding answers. I decided that this had gone on long enough…” 

Arissa then looked at me, like she was confessing some kind of sin. “I stepped forward and told everyone who murdered the farmer, and that we had sided with the Stormcloaks to try and hold on to our land. They arrested Gunnher, his men…and my family, for collaboration with the Stormcloaks. Vidric seized Oakshore, claiming Imperial right,” she said to me and then looked away out of shame, “Vidric won. Everything had gone according to his plan.” 

“Why didn’t they arrest you?” I asked, noticing she hadn’t mentioned what had happened to her. 

She snorted in response. 

“They tried, believe me,” she explained, “I escaped and fled to Skyrim, where I began wandering from village to village.” 

Arissa shifted a little, and I reached into my bag and took out some more mead for us. I offered her a bottle and she readily accepted it. We both drank in silence for a few minutes before she continued with her story. 

“I was…angry. Confused. Betrayed,” she said as she remembered, I could tell that despite how old the wounds were, they still hurt. I knew the feeling well, but I let her continue. “Oakshore and my family were everything to me, and now they were gone. Because of me.” 

“You couldn’t have known what would happen… You can’t blame yourself,” I tried to assure her. 

“Try telling that to an eighteen year old girl who just lost everything. Trust me, I could blame myself plenty,” she snapped at me, “And I have, for a very long time. Ten years, long. What would you know about that?” 

“Plenty,” I snapped back, meeting her gaze evenly. 

“Erik… I know you lost your parents too… But it’s just not the same… The guilt…” she tried to explain, but I was having none of it. 

“Arissa… I joined the Imperial army when my parents explicitly told me not to,” I explained to her, “I was practically still a child, growing up on outdated legends of soldiers and heroes… I thought I could make a difference…” I paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “But all it got me was captured by the Thalmor, and charged as brigands when we had gone in to take care of some. The Empire renounced us to save face with the Dominion…and I was sufficiently tortured and sent home in shame. When I got back…my family was dead.” 

“Erik…” Arissa began to say, but I wasn’t finished. The emotion hit me like a strong wave. 

“I left them when I could have been there to help. I left them to die, Arissa… So yeah, I know exactly what kind of guilt you feel…” I calmed down a bit and stared at the fire as well, “I blamed myself for a long time. I wandered Skyrim too and became a sellsword for a bit…” 

“How did you deal with it?” 

“I still am. I can’t tell you it gets any easier…” 

Arissa nodded and looked at the flickering flames with me. We both spent a few minutes just staring at those flames. Eventually, Arissa gave in and sighed. 

“For ten years, I wandered Skyrim. I’ve done things too I never have dreamed of, just to survive…” I felt her eyes turn back to me, “And then I met you.” 

Wait, what? Arissa seemed to recognize my minor shock. 

“You showed me what it means to have a purpose, to have hope again, and to bring that hope to others,” she explained, a warm smile appearing on her face. 

“Heh, I doubt that… I don’t even know my own purpose…” I admitted, feeling a little sheepish. 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she said softly, and then gave me a coy grin, “Oh, great Dragonborn.” 

“If you’re a fan of legends,” I replied. 

“Well, I’m glad I got to know one,” she retorted; and yeah, I admit, that one got me right in the feelings, “So thank you. My life would be very different had you not shown up in Falkreath that day.” 

“…You know, I can’t remember who was supposed to be comforting who here?” I chuckled and told her. 

“Mutual comforting, then. It’s only fair,” Arissa suggested, and I was inclined to agree with her. 

We both shifted so that we were lying on either side of the fire and looking up at the sky. I was content to just sleep like that, as the mead had dulled my senses to the point where my beast blood wouldn’t be inclined to keep me too awake. 

“You showed me what it means to have hope and purpose,” she repeated to me, but was still looking up, “So that’s why…I’ve decided…to go to Solitude and find a boat to take me back to Oakshore.” 

“Yeah, that’s nice…” I murmured, almost falling asleep before my brain suddenly processed what Arissa had said, “Wait, what!?” 

I turned my head to look at her, and she was already looking back at me. 

“I have to go back… I’ve been running all this time…I need to use all that hope and purpose you’ve shown me,” she explained softly, but also in a decisive way that made me begin to realize that she had every intention of doing it, “I have to see what can be done, at least. Oakshore has always been my home…” 

“I…understand,” I said slowly, “Skyrim…is my home too. I don’t think I could abandon it now even if I wanted too.” 

“We both need to find our purposes now” she stated, and I nodded in agreement. 

“So… I guess Solitude is our next destination,” I nodded. 

Arissa looked confused for a moment. “You’re…coming with me to Solitude.” 

“Hey, I can’t let my best friend go take a ship out to sea without seeing her off myself,” I grinned, “It’s bad luck.” 

“Best friend, eh?” 

“Of course.” 

Arissa giggled. “Good… I’m glad we’ll be parting ways as friends. And…Erik?” she looked at me with those deep green eyes. 

“Yeah, Arissa?” I replied curiously. 

“If you need me…just let me know. One letter from you and I’ll race across the damn see to help you out,” she assured me with a smile. 

“Good… Because, knowing my luck, I’m gonna need it,” I admitted. 

We went to sleep not long after that. I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit saddened that our adventure together would soon be coming to an end. But something about our eventual parting…inspired me. The Greybeards calling me from the Throat of the World…I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The Companion’s too…I had a responsibility to them as well. If Arissa could go back home despite everything that had happened to her, then I could see what fate had in store for me too. I went to sleep feeling a renewed sense of purpose that night. 

But my dreams that night were bittersweet, at best.


	16. Puss in the Wound

“All right, hand over your valuables, or I'll gut you like a fish." 

This is how Arissa and I’s day had begun; walking around, minding our own business, when a male Dunmer walks up to us and threatens to gut us like fish if we don’t give him our valuables. I sighed, Arissa giggled knowingly, and the dark elf did not look impressed at all. 

“I’m not going to ask you again,” the Dunmer said sternly. 

“Geesh, can you believe this guy?” I asked Arissa with a yawn. 

“I know. I’m not even sure if he’s part of the Guild…not with this sad scheme. I’ve seen bandits with more finess…” Arissa sighed dramatically. 

“Guild?” I asked, turning my attention to her and intentionally ignoring the armed thief just to spite him further. 

“Hmm? You’ve never heard the Thieve’s Guild?” Arissa replied, genuinely surprised. 

“Oh, THAT Guild…” I laughed. 

“Er… What? Are you two daft!? I’ll bleed you both out and leave you for the wolves!” he threatened, pulling out an axe and a dagger. 

I eyed his weapons, but still shrugged to myself and walked past him. Arissa followed my lead. 

“We really don’t have time for this, man… Find someone else to pester,” I said over my shoulder. 

“Don’t you walk away from me!” the elf shouted and raised his weapons. 

I moved immediately, side-stepping his first strike and drawing Dawnbreaker before he could make the second. One moment my Daedric blade clashed with simple steel, the next the Dunmer’s weapons were lying off to the side, cut completely in half. I touched the tip of Dawnbreaker against the man’s throat, which in turn burned his skin a little. He could only wince in discomfort. 

“Walk away. Right now…before my blade slips,” I ordered him, staring with unblinking eyes. 

“Er… Right…you look like you shouldn’t be trifled with,” the thief stuttered out, then tried to back away slowly. “So, if you’ll allow it… I’ll just be on my way-” 

“Hold it,” I interrupted suddenly, looking very serious until a coy smile spread across my face. “You packing anything good in those pockets?” 

The dark elf stared in shock, but knew he wasn’t in any position to negotiate. He emptied out what pockets I could see; I didn’t feel like pressing him for the hidden stuff. It wasn’t a bad amount of stuff either, mainly just jewelry that could be sold for some decent coin. He had an enchanted ring too, which I happily took because it seemed to improve my skill with one-handed weapons. After I was satisfied, I   
let him go with the warning that Arissa would start counting before she started taking practise shots at him with her bow. We didn’t specify what she would be counting up to, though, and so the thief ran for the hills as fast as he could. We got a good laugh about it after wards. 

“Pfft. You weren’t showing off for me back there, were you?” Arissa asked cheekily while we continued down the road. 

“What do you mean?” I asked back, getting the feeling that I had impressed her somehow. 

“Disarming him like that…and then taking his stuff. Glad to see you’re not always the ‘honorable warrior’ you make yourself out to be,” she explained. 

“Oh… Well, I guess you rubbed off on me a little bit,” I speculated; Arissa laughed at that. 

We continued on the road for a little bit longer, before hunting a deer and dragging its carcas back to our camp to skin, cook and eat. It was nice to just relax in each other’s company, at least now that we both knew it was soon coming to an end. Arissa had explained previously that she was in no rush, and we sort of took our time traveling to Solitude. I think both of us wanted to stretch this trip out as much as possible. So we ate, drank, and enjoyed a peaceful existence without any signs of real danger to worry about… 

…or at least, that was the intention, before a man stumbled into our camp. 

When I first noticed the Nord approaching us, for a moment I thought he was drunk. He sort of partly stumbled side to side, and seemed to be on the verge of tripping over anything in his way. When I saw his face after he got a little closer, I quickly stood up and gripped Dawnbreaker’s hilt. Something about the man seemed off…his skin looked red and his features were sunken in. He looked like he was on the edge of death from sickness. 

“Who are you?” I asked sternly. 

Arissa noticed what I had as well and whirled around to grab her bow. The man held up his arms in surrender. He seemed more annoyed than anything, however, when he realized Arissa and I were both staring at him. 

“Are you finished ogling the grotesque? I suppose I should be thankful you didn’t simply attack me on sight,” the man said to us in an irritated voice. 

“If you don’t explain yourself, we still might,” Arissa retorted, notching an arrow against her bow, “What’s wrong with you?” 

"I am one of the Afflicted. I'd have been dead from this plague a year ago if not for Peryite's protection," the afflicted man explained. 

“Peryite? Great… Sounds like another Daedra,” I sighed with a mixture of interest and dread. Daedra usually meant great rewards if you helped them, but there was always a hidden hook or angle they’d be working that sometimes made it hard to sleep. “Where are you going, anyways?” 

“I’m returning to High Rock. Our shepherd lost his way, and I fear Peryite's wrath may consume those who remain with him," the man answered, “Kesh could tell you more. I just want out of Skyrim as quickly as possible.” 

“Who’s Kesh?” Arissa asked. 

“A Khajiit alchemist. Worships Peryite,” the man clarified. 

We let the man eat from the rest of the meat we had cooked up at our camp…after we had finished packing up and leaving. Figuring it was already on the way, from how the sickly man described it, we ended going to check out Peryite’s Shrine. Well, ‘on the way’ was only half true, because we ended up having to climb for a bit at the end. Still, we found ourselves amongst a bunch of rocks surrounding a dead tree, with a make-shift camp built around it. We both stood there, unsure of what to do next. Luckily, that next step was came on its own. 

“Ah, a wanderer, yes?” A voice directly behind us asked. 

Arissa and I whirled around in surprise, only to find a Khajiit wearing a hood I had seen Redguard warriors use, and other less extravagant clothes. I was willing to bet this was Kesh the Clean that the man from before had mentioned. We didn’t answer his question right away, mainly due to shock, and he seemed to take this as a wrong guess. 

“No? Pilgrim, perhaps? Have you come to commune with Peryite, Taskmaster and blighted Lord?" he continued. 

“Er… You’re Kesh, right?” Arissa asked, regaining her composure. 

“’Kesh’ is this one’s name, yes,” Kesh confirmed. He desired to know our names as well, he didn’t ask. Honestly, the cat was all kinds of unnerving. 

“So, Peryite… Which, uh…Daedric, is he?” I asked next, genuinely curious. “I just want to know if he’s one of the really bad ones…” 

“He is the pus in the wound. Oh, proper ones curl their noses, but it's pus that drinks foul humors and restores the blood,” Kesh explained to me, either not considering which Daedra I hoped to avoid or simply not caring. “I worship Peryite, yes, because sometimes the world can only be cleansed by disease.” 

“Sounds…terrific,” Arissa interjected, looking a little grossed out. 

Kesh seemed pretty amused by both of our expressions. “If you would like to commune with my Lord Peryite, I would invite you to do so. Not everyone has the stomach to do so, but Kesh likes you, friend. There is a way Peryite may speak to us who will take him in,” Kesh spoke in a calm manner. It sounded like a terrible idea to me. 

“What do we need to do?” Arissa asked. I was shocked to hear her sound like she wanted to do this, but I followed her lead. 

“If you wish to commune with him, we’ll need the incense,” Kesh explained. 

“Wonderful. What are we gonna need?” I asked impatiently. 

Kesh told us everything we would need: a silver ingot, a flawless ruby, a Deathbell flower, and some vampire dust. Maybe it was fate that we decided to go through with the ritual, because we just happened to have everything Kesh needed. He was particularly surprised about the vampire dust and, in that moment, I was glad we had gathered so much from Haemar’s Shame. It only took Kesh a few minutes to mix all of the ingredients into a large pot to create…whatever it was, he had to make. To be honest, I was terrible at all things relating to alchemy. 

“That should do. Now – inhale deeply,” Kesh told us as a green vapor began to leak from the cauldron. 

“Well, here goes nothing,” I said to Arissa and walked up to the cauldron to inhale the vapors deeply through my nose. Arissa did the same right after me. 

At first, I didn’t notice anything too strange. The smell was…well, terrible; that was unsurprising. It burned my nose at first, but after, my senses went totally numb. After that? Everything began to get all bendy and I swear the dead tree was reaching out to me. When I heard the voice, I figured Kesh had gotten me high. 

“Breathe deep, mortal. I would have you hear me well, so let these vapors fill your lungs,” the voice demanded. 

“Damn it… Did Kesh poison us or something?” I asked, but it was hard to talk when my eyes were so heavy. 

“In a sense, but no more poisoned than a fool after too much wine,” Peryite explained, and surprisingly it made perfect sense to me. 

“So, uh… What do you want from me?” I asked. Usually talking to Daedric Lords was a little intimidating, but I felt too relaxed to really care who I was talking to. 

“I have watched you for some time, you know. The decisions you've made intrigue me, and I wonder if you are a proper agent for a task of mine,” Peryite explained, his voice seeming to come from everywhere. I had a feeling he was doing that on purpose and that he could easily make himself appear from one spot, but Daedric Lords just loved messing with mortals like that; made them feel big and powerful. “I sent a blessing to Mundus, a wasting plague that infected a scattering of Breton villages. One of my monks, the elf Orchendor, was sent to gather these Afflicted. He shepherded them into Bthardamz for me, but has since lost his way. I will not stand for betrayal. I want you to go to Bthardamz and Kill Orchendor, in my name.” 

“Yeah, okay… Kill the elf with the army of sick people, got it…” I recounted impatiently, “But what’s in it for us?” 

“Ah, the pettiness of mortals. I had almost forgotten,” Peryite seemed to sigh, “I can grant you a powerful token for this task. An escutcheon of Dwemer make, capable of shielding you from both spell and sword.” 

“So, a shield…that can block spells…?” I asked, suddenly very interested. 

“Yes.” Peryite responded simply. 

Talos be praised. 

After Peryite released us, Arissa, who apparently didn’t hear Peryite but…other voices, needing filling in on what our task was. After hearing the reward she began to pout. “A shield? Pssh… Sounds like a lousy reward to me…” she pouted. 

“You can have everything else we come across in that ruin,” I offered. 

“Deal,” she replied immediately. 

Sometimes, dealing with gold-driven thieves was too easy. 

Kesh pointed us in the right direction to Bthardamz, which was conveniently located at the foot of the mountain. As always, I was thankful whenever we went downhill instead of up, as it made the whole trip go so much faster and easier. We found the dwarven ruins easy enough after that, and soon we had the cover of nightfall to mask our approach. I hated doing the dirty work of Daedrics, but in this case the reward was too good and I wasn’t going to let a cult of virulent rats spread plague through Skyrim. 

We snuck up to Bthardamz, but unfortunately one man happened to notice me as we got closer. He charged, but we managed to fill him through of arrows before he got close enough to do anything. A second man followed him, but when he got close and I drew my sword, he proceeded to vomit some green…I didn’t even know what to call it. What I did know, was that I wasn’t have any more of that. I avoided the strange spewing substance and decapitated the afflicted man with one swift swing of Dawnbreaker. Looking back at the green stuff, I could see it sizzling on the ground. It smelled like sickness. 

“Don’t go near it,” I warned Arissa, crouching down in front of the green stuff, “It’s poisonous at best. Seems like there’s some kind of…sickness, to it. Probably spreads when they spew the stuff…” 

“Ugh… How can you tell?” Arissa asked, covering her mouth and looking like she might hurl. 

“I can smell it,” I shrugged. 

“So…why are you so close to it?” 

“One of the benefits to being a werewolf. Immunity to all disease. If I can resist vampirism, this stuff shouldn’t slow me down…” 

I stood up, and the both of walked around the ruins until we found the entrance to the ruins. That sickening smell these afflicted guys had? It was almost unbearable for my nose. Even Arissa, who lacked my sensitivity, seemed visibly displeased by the odour. 

“Smells like there’s a lot in there. Dozens, just in the first area…” I explained to Arissa, beginning to take off my armor and equipment. “There’s probably way more further in…” 

“Don’t tell me you’re doing what I think you’re doing…” Arissa said, sounding worried. 

“No choice…” I replied, “I might be immune to disease, but you’re not.” 

“Erik… When you turn into that thing, you’re not…you,” Arissa tried to explain to me. 

“Arissa… There’s no way I’d hurt you, you know…” 

Arissa sighed. “I know, but that’s not what I mean…” 

I looked at her, and I could smell her heart beating a little faster. I knew she was scared, and the fact that it was sort of me that she was scared of hurt a little. The truth was, while her safety truly was a concern of mine, and a big one at that, it wasn’t the only thing in my mind. Ever since Cidhna Mine, I kept feeling a sort of call from my beastblood. I mean, the urge to hunt was always there in my dreams, but my waking senses were starting to feel it now as well. They were only quieted after a proper hunt. 

“You should wait out here, Arissa… It’ll be pretty dangerous in there…” I suggested, turning to walk into the ruins. 

I felt a hand grasp my shoulder from behind. When I turned around, Arissa was looking at me with that familiar warm smile that always seemed to cheer me up. “Hey, remember what I said about never letting you go into strange shrines without me?” 

“Heh… Hopefully there won’t be any guards in here to ambush me,” I grinned. 

“Not with me watching your back… Just…be careful,” she said with that other usual expression; concern. 

So, when we walked in I transformed into a werewolf. After that, it became the usual song in dance for me; hunt, kill, feed, move on to next prey. Most people inside the ruins were asleep by this time at night, so I was able to deal with them without much trouble. The few that were awake were no match for me. For the most part, these people weren’t well armed. Instead, they seemed to rely on their ability to quickly infect, but unfortunately for them I was immune to that tactic. In other words, it was slaughter; I’d never hunted so many at once as a wolf. Occasionally Dwemer constructs would try and stop me, but I dealt with them just as quick as the living. By the time I got to the end, and it took me a long time to get to the end because of the sheer size of these Dwemer ruins, I was nearly full. 

I slowly entered a large room and found Orchendor standing there. He noticed me after a I let out a long howl and instantly began to attack with a wide range of magic. Even in beast form, I hated being hit with magic with a passion. I sprinted and attacked, long claws threatening to cut him like a hot knife through butter. While Orchendor had a few neat tricks, including, teleportation, in the end he was no match for my speed and power. He could not keep up, and when he finally miscalculated an attack, I pinned him to the ground and ripped out his throat with my powerful jaws. 

That was the end of that.   
Arissa made it out of there with a decent haul after looting all the chests and bodies inside. Orchendor himself had some very nice and expensive items on him, and I knew she would be more than happy to sell them for gold. 

We made the climb back to Peryite’s Shrine, where Kesh greeted us yet again. He seemed momentarily surprised to see us, but it was hard to tell. I had a hard time reading Khajiit. 

“Ah, it seems you have returned. Did the afflicted ones prove troublesome?” he asked in a way I figured was equal both interested and amused. 

“You and Peryite left out the part where they spat poison,” I replied, very annoyed. 

“Kesh expected you two would find a way past that,” Kesh retorted with a calm shrug, and then motioned to the green fumes rising from the cauldron, “If you wish to commune with my Lord Peryite, you may do so.” 

I did just that, but I had Arissa stay back with Kesh since he seemed only interested in talking to me…and I figured we should probably have at least one of us with all their sense intact. I took a big whiff of the fumes and once again, everything to seemed to get all bendy. I could hear Peryite’s voice almost immediately after that. “Well done, mortal. All things are in their order, and Orchendor roams the Pits. His betrayal will be punished, and your obedience is rewarded,” came Peryite’s pleased, but still equally disturbing voice. 

“So… What happens now?” I asked uncertainly. 

“Go, seek your fate. I will be watching, and perhaps we will meet again – afterwards,” Peryite responded all mysteriously and oh-so-divine-like. 

Honestly, he could not have been more cryptic with his answer. 

“Right… Er… The shield?” I inquired, trying to move the topic somewhere not so errie. 

“Oh yes, you’re reward,” Peryite replied excitedly, “Go now, mortal, and wield this mighty weapon in my name.” 

“Right… Of course.” 

With that, the fumes began to dissipate and I felt my senses slowly come back. I shook my head and looked towards Kesh and Arissa, but the both of them were looking at me with shocked expressions on their faces. Or, at least, I thought they were looking at me. When I followed their gaze back to the tree, however, I noticed a strange object lodged inside of it. 

A strange shield-like object. 

“Huh…” I murmured as I walked past the cauldron and pulled the weapon from the tree. When I did, more of that green mist began to pour out into the sky, and seemed to be carried away in the wind. I wasn’t paying much attention to it, however, as I now had my prize in my hands. A shield that could stop spells, as well as swords. Perfect. 

“Wow, so that’s it, huh?” Arissa asked as she approached me, looking over the shield I held, “Damn, these Daedrics sure have neat-looking toys… What’s it called?” 

“I suppose it does need a name…” I agreed, looking the shield over once more. It was interesting looking, but the way its shape was concave outwards from me seemed…weird. It would take some getting used to, unless I could find someone to rework the metal. Maybe Eorlund could help. 

“What about something to do with magic… Magic-blocker?” Arissa suggested, partially as a joke. 

But I liked where she was going with it. 

“Yeah, yeah, something like…” I began, then looked down at Dawnbreaker that was sheathed at my side. In the moment, I couldn’t think of anything better to call my new piece of equipment. “I’m thinking… Spellbreaker.” 

And so, with Spellbreaker in tow, Arissa and I continued our journey to Solitude.


	17. Solitude

“There it is,” Arissa stated and smiled, “Solitude!” 

She had climbed up a big rock and was covering her eyes with her hand to block the light of the setting sun, but I could see she was impressed by the view. And why wouldn’t she be? I had seen Solitude a couple times before, but the view of the massive city sitting on a natural arch of rock overlooking the sea was…well, really cool. The fact that it signaled the end of our adventure together, however, made the sight of the city a little sad. 

“So where are we heading to first?” I asked Arissa after she finally climbed down. 

“Well, eventually I’ll have to talk to some people by the docks and see who I’ll be hiring to take me to Oakshore…” she began to say, and I could see the hint of sadness in her eyes too. Of course, Arissa was never someone I knew to be kept down for long, and she perked backed up in no time and put her fist on my shoulder. “But hey! No rush for that. Have you been to Solitude before? It looks better on the inside!” 

“Hehe… Yeah, I have… Well, sorta. I didn’t exactly get to explore last time I was here,” I answered, cheered up by Arissa’s chipper attitude. 

“Solitude’s always a great place to see once the guards have forgotten my face. Plenty of rich folk in the city and they always have the nicest things to share with me. It’s like they don’t even need them!” Arissa explained. 

I laughed at that, and we walked up the cobblestone road towards the city. We passed by the path that I assumed lead to the docks, and even from our position I could see plenty of ships docked. Arissa wouldn’t have any problem finding one that got her close to where she needed to go. Not long after seeing the docks did we find ourselves in front of Solitude’s massive city gate that would put Whiterun’s to shame. We opened it and took our first steps into the city… 

…and walked right upon a public execution. 

I never really had the stomach to watch someone be put to death. Certainly, I imagined it was different for people with personal reasons to demand someone’s life as justice, but the idea of dying on your knees…well, I knew I’d rather die with a sword in my hand and the fight still in me. I guess some people saw being beheaded as dying with dignity, but I would take an honorable death over a dignified one any day. 

“We don’t have to watch this, do we?” Arissa asked, looking as unimpressed as I felt, “I’m not a fan of executions for an audience.” 

“Of course not. Let’s go,” I said in agreement, and we both left the gruesome scene behind us. I could hear chanting in the background, a Nord prisoner exclaiming his innocence. It sounded like that was the man that let Ulfric go free after the previous king was killed. Even though we were walking away at a brisk pace, I swear I still heard the headsman’s axe strike the block, and I knew the man had been killed. 

What a waste. 

“So… You’ve been to Solitude before, Arissa?” I asked, trying to make us both forget what had just happened by making innocent conversation. 

“Sure have!” Arissa exclaimed suddenly, eager to shift the tone of the visit to something more pleasant. “You know, I perfected my smooth-talking skills at the Bard’s College here.” 

“Bard’s College? Doesn’t sound very fun to me,” I teased. 

“Too bad. I thought maybe you could use a lesson. Or five,” Arissa retorted with a wide grin. 

“Very funny,” I snorted. 

We managed to find an inn to stay in for the night. The Winking Skeever, as it was called, was actually a lot nicer than the name suggested. Of course, this wasn’t really surprising to me; everything in Solitude seemed to be fancy, most of the time. So Arissa and I found a nice table to sit at and the waitress supplied us with the copious amounts of food and alcohol we demanded. We had managed to sell off most of the valuables we had picked up and, considering the circumstances, we decided blowing most of it all off in one night perfectly acceptable. 

“So, how what do you plan on doing once you get back home?” I asked Arissa while she poured us both a drink. 

“I grabbed some documents Gunnher had on him when we took him down in Skygrove,” Arissa explained before taking a sip of her drink, “I’ve looked through them and they have official transactions between Gunnher and the Aldmeri Dominion. Enough to prove they destroyed my family to get what they wanted…” 

“And you figure these papers will rally people against the Thalmor?” I asked, followed by a long gulp of mead. 

Arissa nodded and smiled like some bad dream was almost over. “With these documents, Oakshore might one day be ours again. Who knows, you might even get a chance to see it one day.” 

“I expect a grand tour. And a nice beach to relax on,” I stated jokingly. 

“Only the best for the great Dragonborn,” Arissa replied seamlessly. The girl’s wit was too sharp for her own good. I couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Alright… But, Arissa, seriously… If you get into any trouble, let me know. I’ll sail across the Sea of Ghosts if I have to, even if I have to row myself there,” I promised her, and we both laughed. 

“Hey, I was the one who said they would come back to help you, remember?” she pointed out. 

“I’d be a pretty poor friend if I didn’t make the same offer,” I explained with a large grin. 

“To friends, then!” Arissa exclaimed, holding out her mug. 

“Best friends!” I corrected her with the same energy. 

 

We slammed our mugs together, splashing more mead than we had intended to onto the table. It didn’t slow us down, however, and we kept talking as the night went on. The more we talked, however, the more mead we inevitably consumed. It wasn’t long before we had both met our alcohol tolerance thresholds. 

“So… You’re a thief…” I sort of slurred out. All the mead and ale was clearly getting to me. 

“That’s right!” Arissa answered, obviously uncaring in regards to who heard our conversation. Fortunately, I suspected at this point we both sounded like a bunch of drunken fools. Which, I suppose, wasn’t entirely untrue. 

“Right, right… But…is there anywhere you want to steal from here before you go? I mean, we could…” I began, but I was interrupted by Arissa’s very obvious gasp. 

“Erik! Are you saying you want to do some stealing with me?” she asked in apparent shock. 

I threw up my arms in defense. “Whoa, hey! I didn’t say that! I just figured you might have somewhere you’ve always wanted to…y’know, take something from…” I added quickly, although I wasn’t entirely certain what my point was. 

“You ass! I decide to leave Skyrim and NOW you want to start not being a big’ol sword in the dirt!” 

“I think you mean ‘stick in the mud,’ Arissa.” 

“Pfft. I know what I said.” 

We both laughed for a solid minute before stopping when the woman serving us brought us another round of drinks and took our empty plates away. The constant food was probably the only thing keeping us from getting sick. Arissa wiped a tear from her eye after all the laughing and gave me a mischievous smile. 

“You know, I hear Jarl Elisif is looking for a couple new thanes for her court. Imagine the trouble you and I could get into if we…” her voice trailed off as she considered the possibilities. 

“Arissa, I’m certain for a fact that the Jarl, no matter how desperate, would want you at her court,” I said, trying to bring her back to reality. 

Arissa pretended to look offended. “What!? And why do you think that?” she demanded. 

“She probably prefers not to have her valuables nailed down as a precaution,” I replied simply with a grin. 

Arissa laughed at that, but then that mischievous look in her eyes didn’t just return, it came back in full force. I could see some idea dastardly growing in her mind. “Hey, that gives me an idea…” 

Ah, shit. 

“Yeah…? What’s that?” I asked a little nervously. 

“Well, ya’ asked if there was somewhere, since it’s my last time here for a while, that I’d like to steal from…” she began. 

“Right… And?” I urged her on, which probably was a huge mistake on my part. 

“And you wanted to be not-boring and help me do it… And you mentioned the Jarl…” she continued. 

“Actually, you mentioned her,” I interjected. Arissa rolled her eyes. 

“Well, ANYWAYS,” she said, ignoring my point, “Since I’m not a thane at her court, she shouldn’t have any reason to have her things nailed down…” 

“Wait, you want to steal from the Jarl of Solitude? You want to break into the Blue Palace?” I asked in disbelief. 

“Pfft. Break in? Please… Anyone can break in to a fancy palace at night while everyone’s sleeping...” 

Somehow, I really doubted that. 

“…We’re going to do it during the day. Right under their noses,” she continued, and that look of determination in her eyes was almost scary. She then looked at me and winked, and I sighed, because I knew I wasn’t getting out of it now. 

“How do you plan on doing that?” I asked suspiciously. 

“Oh, Erik…” Arissa replied, sounding incredibly amused by my uncertainty, “I have the perfect job for you, tomorrow.” 

We paid for our rooms and retired to bed later that night, and Arissa never took back her plan on us visiting the Blue Palace the next morning. Somehow, even in our drunken rambling, I had a feeling our last adventure together in Skyrim was going to be an unforgettable one. Although, in truth, I had no way of knowing if that was going to be a good or bad thing. 

The thing about travelling with Arissa? Good and bad usually went hand-in-hand together.


End file.
